The Gift of a Second Chance
by Silverhair Theory
Summary: SEQUEL NOW UP. With everyone he ever loved dead around him, Harry Potter uses a secret weapon and goes back to kill the one who caused it all. But when the one he came to kill becomes the one who means the most to him, will he follow his heart? HPTR
1. Prologue

**Author:** Silverhair Theory

**Rating: **M

**Disclaimer: **I nothing. JKRowling owns everything. If you prosecute me all you're likely to get is my sweet stash and my teddy bear, so I wouldn't advise it.

**THE GIFT OF A SECOND CHANCE**

_Prologue_

"_HARRY! HARRY HELP ME! HARRY! HA..." _The scream split the night and Harry whirled around just in time to see Lucius Malfoy shoot a flash of burning green light at Hermione's chest.

"_HERMIONE! NOOOO!_" Harry yelled and sprinted towards them.

Around him the battle raged. It was almost too much to take in. The field around him was strewn with bodies, some in Death Eater cloaks, others in Hogwarts robes. He passed Dean Thomas' body, broken and crushed by the Death Eater's corpse sprawled over the top of him, his round glasses shattered and his half-open eyes unseeing. His hair was in a fan around his head and it was tipped with red as he lay in a pool of his own blood.

Harry turned his head away. His eyes caught sight of Bellatrix Lestrange, cowering not ten metres away from him, shielding her eyes from the wand pointed at her by Neville Longbottom. The round-faced boy, who was usually stuttering and shy, had a cold, hard look on his face and no mercy in his clear blue eyes.

"This is for you, mum and dad." He said. "_Avada Kedavra!"_ Bellatrix's eyes looked at the person behind Neville as the light sped towards her, and died with a smirk on her face.

"_Avada Kedavra_!" Harry and the Death Eater standing behind Neville shouted as one. The jets of green light both found their target, Neville slumping over with a small tired smile on his face, and his assassin dropped also. As the person hit the floor their mask fell off and underneath Harry saw the unmistakable features of Vincent Crabbe.

Harry leapt over the fallen boy and raced onwards to where Lucius Malfoy was now engaged in a furious battle with Remus Lupin.

"Here, werewolf, I'll make it so you never have to transform again." Lucius said, and Remus' face showed barely a flicker of emotion

"No, Malfoy, I'm afraid you're incorrect." He talked like he was correcting Lucius for an wrong answer in class. "I am going to kill you."

"_Argentius." _Lucius said, and a jet of silver light hit Lupin over the heart. The werewolf dropped to the ground, writhing and screaming as the blood in his veins turned to molten silver.

"_Avada Kedavra_!" A voice shouted and Lucius staggered forwards from the force of the spell that had hit him in the back. He fell face down into a patch of sludge, mud and blood mixed together to make a foul paste which coated his ice blonde hair. Behind him stood Draco Malfoy.

Malfoy's hair was blowing around his head in a golden halo, and though he was in Death Eater robes, he looked, for a minute second, like an angel standing over the body of a fallen demon. Then he looked down in surprise as the thin point of a blade erupted thorugh his chest. Seeming to stare at it unseeingly, he touched the blood-covered blade lightly with one hand, almost stroking it.

"Thankyou...Mother..." He said, in a faint whisper. He choked, and a small trail of blood trickled out of his mouth and down his chin to his neck, where it settled at the base of his throat. He looked up and saw Harry standing there, mouth open in horror. "Potter...Harry..." He choked again, and brought his hand up to his mouth. When he took it away, there was blood running down his fingers. "Hermione...where..." Harry gestured vaguely to where Hermione's body lay, her mouth still open, screaming Harry's name.

"Her...Herm...Granger..." Malfoy fell to his hands and knees, crawling like an animal to his girlfriend's corpse. He collapsed on top of her, panting and spraying flecks of blood on the trampled grass. His hands, fingering Hermione's hair, twitched slightly, then fell still.

"My son...My boy..." A sobbing, wretched cry came from where Draco had been standing. There, crouched on the grass, resplendent in her Malfoy family robes, with tears running down her beautiful face, was Narcissa Malfoy. In one hand she held the rapier which she had stuck through her son's body. In the other hand was a piece of crumpled up paper. "So ends the Malfoy line..." She gasped, and plunged the already blood-stained sword through her own chest. She did not make a sound as she fell, shuddering on the floor, but her fists clenched around the paper she held in her hand and it tore as her long nails, painted black, ripped into it.

Harry stared at the family. The father lying in filth next to his now whimpering schoolmate. The son holding his love in a deathly embrace, with his hands in her hair. The mother with her own weapon through her chest, even in death reaching for her husband and son.

He shook his head and went over to Lupin. The werewolf had barely enough strength to whimper now, and was curled in on himself, silver running from his mouth like drool and eyes shining and glistening as silver tears flowed from his eyes, which were squinted in pain. He seemed to see Harry.

"Harry...The weapon...you must get it...you _must_..." His pupil's contracted, and he breathed out in a last sigh, his shaking body going still at last.

Harry knelt with tears trickling silently down his cheeks as he bade his mentor and good friend goodbye without words. The bodies of his friends and enemies lay around him and he knelt and wept for them.

"Harry? Harry, god mate, you look terrible...oh..." Ron's voice approached him from behind, and slowed as the red-head noticed the bodies and who they belonged to. He heard a thump as Ron fell to his knees also, and turned around to see his best friend staring with wide, unbelieving eyes at Hermione.

"'Mi...'Mione?" His small voice was barely a whisper. "No...no...it's not true, it _can't_ be true." He looked over at Harry with tears and the last of his fighting spirit in his eyes. "Harry...we've gotta...we must be able to do _something_..."

_"Harry...The weapon...you must get it...you must..." _Remus' voice echoed in his head, and he scrambled over to Hermione's corpse and started undoing her robes.

"Harry? _Harry, what the hell are you doing_?" Ron asked, the horror evident in his voice as Harry nudged Draco aside to feel down the back of her robes. About halfway down her back, he felt a small lump, and, biting his own tongue to keep the nausea and shame from welling up in his throat, he tore the small object from his friend's cooling skin. He took the small bloodstained object out and looked at it.

The small black box, like a ring case, brought a flash of memory back from the deep recesses of his mind, of the last time Professor McGonagall had spoken to them before she went off on that fateful mission to her scottish home to see if she could find one of the remaining Horcruxes, or any news about it, from her friend who had worked in an antiques shop. A platoon of Death Eaters ambushed her and her friend at the shop, killing them both, but not before they had taken out a sizeable chunk of the small army.

_"Harry, you must always be very careful with this. I'm giving it to Hermione because I trust her to be where she needs to be, and do what she needs to do. She is also a girl, and as such there will be less chance of it being noticed. I'm not going to tell you what's inside the box, that is a secret even I don't know. All I was told to tell you is that if you should ever be at your last hope, with all around you dead or done for, then, and only then must you open this box and use what is inside. Do you understand?"  
_

_"Yes Professor." He had said, and she had nodded and left the room, leaving headquarters only a few minutes later._

"Harry, will that help her? Will that help Hermione?" Ron's voice was desperate and high-pitched, grating on the edge of outright panic.

"No...no Ron, we can't use it. Not yet. Not until we are at our last hope, with everyone around us dead or done for, can we use this. He slipped the object into the pocket of robes and was just rising when he heard a cold sneer behind him that made his blood go cold and his hands shake with anger, fear and tension.

"What are you snivelling for, Potter. It's _only a mudblood_." Slowly, very, very slowly, Harry turned around, Ron doing the same, and came face to face with a most unpleasant sight.

There, standing in all his unholy glory, was Voldemort. He was grinning and his eyes had an unearthly glow. His black robes seemed to suck in the light, but here and there Harry saw the shine of the moonlight on blood, the bottom of his robes were covered in the stuff. His nostrils were dilated as if taking in the scent of death and blood that hung heavy in the air, and in his hands he held his wand and a clump of red hair.

Attatched to the red hair was Ginny. She was limp, her eyes wide and unseeing, with only the barest hint of the bright green hue Harry was used to. Instead they seemed grey, or perhaps even verging on red, certainly red flecks of colour were interspersed with the green and the grey. Her mouth was hanging slightly open, her face slack and the only thing holding her head up was Voldemort's grip on her long red hair in his pale hand.

Harry felt Ron go stiff next to him as they stared at Ginny. She was obviously unconscious, but something about her glazed eyes reminded Harry of a curse he'd seen in another's eyes, Fred Weasley's as he slaughtered his mother, father, Bill, Charlie and Fleur at a family gathering, before George had leapt at his twin and knocked his head so hard against the floor that he was immediately unconscious, dying of brain damage a couple of days later. George had wasted away without his brother, and eventually volunteered to go on a suicide mission to destroy what McGonagall had believed to be the fourth Horcrux, hidden inside Rowena Ravenclaw's quill, which had been secreted behind a stone in the lowest dungeons of Azkaban.

A few days later the empty shell of George Weasley's body was discovered on a beach on the edge of the lake of Azkaban. Hidden inside his shirt was a small scrap of cloth with three barely legible words scrawled on it in hurried, messy handwriting.

_I did it_

The same look that had been in Fred Weasley's maddedned eyes came back to haunt them as they looked at Ginny, and Harry knew what they'd done to her, knew she couldn't possibly have resisted, not considering how close she had been to being taken over by the Dark Lord before.

"She's under the Imperius." Harry said. It was a statement, not a question, and Harry felt Ron do a double take and then sag slightly with relief that his sister wasn't dead.

"Indeed. She's more useful to me like this. This way, she's a hostage. You can't hold a corpse hostage, nor an empty shell." As Voldemort spoke, the rustles of grass could be heard from behind him and all around his Death Eaters began to congregate. All were spattered with mud, blood and other things which Harry didn't want to know about. Several had their robes torn or burnt and Harry felt a brief flicker of pride for those who had inflicted the damage, then a far grater swoop of guilt as he realised that every one of those brave people had to be dead by now.

"So. Harry Potter. What will you give me for the life of Ginny Weasley?" Voldemort said. His eyes flickered in sick amusement as Harry's fists clenched and Ron gave him a panicked glance. He knew that Ginny's fate was entirely in Harry's hands.

"It does't matter." Harry said through clenched teeth. "Whatever I say, you'll kill her just the same afterwards." Voldemort laughed his high, shrill laugh. It was nothing like Ginny's laugh. Ginny's laugh was sweet as honey, like music playing softly or sparkling water in a mountain stream. Voldemort's laugh was like the screech of fingernails on gravestones or the shriek of a kinfe blade across bone.

"You know me too well Harry." He said, and threw Ginny down on the floor, releasing her hair. Her eyes fluttered and cleared and she looked up to see Harry's and Ron's faces, reaching out to them with one hand, like a child, blood encrusted under her fingernails. Her eyes sought Harry's and she opened her mouth, her perfect lips forming the first shape of Harry's name, but cut off by Voldemort's cry. "_Avada Kedavra_!"

Ginny's body seemed motionless for a few seconds, then her hand fell with a small thump onto the grass and she sagged, her eyes somehow still fixed on Harry even as the light behind them left.

"_GINNY_!" Ron screamed, and leapt forward...right into Nagini. The snake reared up, hissing and spitting and wound itself around Ron, squeezing and snapping. Harry raised his wand but couldn't shoot because he was afraid of killing Ron. Voldemort had crossed his arms casually and seemed to be almost _enjoying_ the display. Suddenly Nagini lunged and caught Ron's neck in a powerful bite which caused him to spasm wildy, tearing at his own neck in his efforts to get away, screaming all the while. When Nagini pulled away there were two holes over Ron's jugular, small, round and leaking a greenish black fluid which _oozed_ rather than trickled. The poison was obviously fast-working because within a few moments the colour spread from Ron's neck down below his neckline, and up over his mouth. His hands, poking out of the ends of his robes turned the same colour as the poison and Ron yelled all the more, trying to tear of his own skin. The dark colours engulfed his body, up across his face and further, turning his red hair a horrible shade of deepest green. Harry wanted to shut his eyes to stop himself seeing Ron's pain, shut his ears from hearing Ron's agony-filled screams, but found his eyes locked with his friend's, as he sank into the ground, his strength leaving him until all he could do was lie there motionless, his eyes wide and his mouth open in an endless silent scream which went on and on and on.

"_Avada Kedavra_!" Harry shouted, unable to take it any more. Several of the Death Eaters surrounding them jolted at the spell and raised their wands but the green jet of light had not been directed at their master. Tears running helplessly down his face, Harry lowered his wand from Ron's body, which was now blissfully still, and Harry knew that he had done the right thing, ending his best friend's life to stop the pain.

"Well Harry, this is it." Voldemort said, one hand resting on Nagini's scaly head, caressing it. "This is the hour that I will finally have my revenge." He started to walk in a circle around Harry, like a hungry vulture. Harry turned to keep him in sight. "I am going to kill you, Harry. I am going to take away your wand and leave you to crawl away like a pitiful child." He kept turning, Nagini slithering after him like some demented dog. Voldemort's voice became very low, making Harry's spine crawl. "Harry...I'm going to look deep into your eyes as I press my wand against your forehead, and watch as your pupil's contract in fear and then clear as the light leaves the space behind them." Harry now had his back to the hordes of Death Eaters, and too late he realised his mistake.

"_Expelliarmus_." The voice came from behind him, and his wand flew away into the darkness, away from Harry's reach, away from the circle of Death Eaters. "_Incarcerous._" The same voice sounded and Harry fell backwards into the sludge as he was bound by strong ropes.

"You see?" Voldemort said, stepping closer. "I finally gave dear Wormtail a chance to do what he's been longing to do for a long time." He loomed above Harry and smiled a terrible smile, sending shivers through Harry's entire body. Harry cursed his body for being so weak, and tried to move his hands. He felt them knock against something in his pocket and realised that what he had felt was the secret weapon that he had taken from Hermione's corpse.

Voldemort, who was leaning down now, face only a few inches from his own, must have mistaken the flicker in his eyes for fear, for he laughed softly. "Yes Harry, fear me. You are utterly helpless now, and I am going to kill you. How does it feel, to know you are going to die? I don't imagine it's a very nice feeling. Don't worry. You won't have to feel it for long." He grinned again, and got up, turning to face the Death Eaters.

"Here we are, friends. This night, I will finally destroy Harry Potter, and when the very last traces of his body are nothing but dust on the wind, we will set forth on our conquest to rid the world of the putrid muggle and mudblood scum that have infested it." Voldemort carried on speaking, but Harry wasn't paying any attention. With one hand, he was gradually levering the lid of the box open, and also trying to crane his head down to see without making any sound or strangling himself with his own ropes.

Slowly, he managed to open the case. What he saw inside made his heart almost stop and his mind go wild with questions and possibilities about what the significance of the item was. Slowly, carefully, he removed the object from its case with one hand, then placed the box back in his pocket, clutching the small precious object in his fingers.

Voldemort finished his speech and turned back to Harry. "Well, Harry Potter, I can't say I've enjoyed knowing you. I think this one act will make up for the rest of the inconvenience you have made me go through." He knelt down and the Death Eaters closed in around them, forming a circle around them.

Voldemort leaned in, his wand pointed at Harry's forehead, his red eyes staring into Harry's own. His whole face was not more than an inch away from Harry's own, and the pale, pale lips opened and a voice, low and hissing, subtly different to normal speech making Harry realise that Voldemort was speaking in Parseltongue.

_Goodbye, Harry Potter. _

Harry's heart sped up, and he moved his finger over the thing concealed in his palm. He opened his mouth, and hissed back.

_Goodbye, Voldemort. _

Voldemort's eyes glittered, and Harry moved, flicking his finger and spinning the time-turner which he had been hiding in his palm. Voldemort's pale, pale face dissolved, and Harry felt the vaguely familiar feeling of rushing backwards into the slipstream of time.

Last time he'd been like this, Hermione had been at his side, banging against him and holding the time turner around their necks. Now Hermione was dead in a field somewhere, sometime and Harry was rushing back in time to an unknown time, with only the knowledge that it had to be better than where he'd left.

It surprised him how long he had been in the rushing time stream. From what he remembered of time travelling in their third year, the experience had only been a few seconds long, and they had travelled back a few hours. If you assumed that the longer he stayed in the time stream, the faster he went and the further back he travelled, he realized he must be going back months, even years.

Then, as a sudden cold shock, he landed on hard cold ground, with grass underneath his back, instead of the slime of the battlefield, and he hit his head so hard on this new ground that for a few moments he lay dazed, eyes closed as his head spun and his body pumped with adrenaline from another time.

A voice broke through his subconsciousness. It was calling, calling to him. There was somebody kneeling next to him, over him, they had their hand on his shoulder, they were shaking him slightly, talking to him.

"Hey you, are you alright? Merlin, look at the state of you, you look like you've been dragged through a ditch! Hello, can you hear me? Do you want me to fetch the headmaster?"

The headmaster... "Mmm...Dumbledore..." Harry moaned, his throat feeling dry. His eyes seemed reluctant to open, but he managed eventually, and stared up at the figure above him as they rearranged back into focus.

What he saw shocked him so much he yelled, scrambling away on his elbows, crawling desperately back from the man who had been kneeling over him and was now giving him a puzzled look.

"Dumbledore? Well, you can see him if you want, but he isn't the headmaster, and that's who _I'd_ see. It's Headmaster Dippet you want."

Harry couldn't answer, couldn't do anything except stare at the youth in front of him, open mouthed. Everything about him was horribly familiar. From the black, nearly straight hair, meticulously combed, to the pale, handsome features, to the pale, spiderlike hands which Harry had all seen before, but not in real life. It had been in a memory, Albus Dumbledore's memory.

Harry only had to look into the eyes to be absolutely certain. Although the eyes were not red nor lidless like they would one day become, they were only too familiar and Harry couldn't stop his body from taking another desperate scrabble away from the figure in front of him, who was now holding out his hand in what Harry hated his mind for describing as a _friendly manner._

"What's your name? Mine's Tom Marvolo Riddle."

Harry fainted.

Author's Notes: Okay! So, how'd you like the prologue? For those of you who were dumb and didn't read the summary, yes, this is a Harry/Tom pairing, and feel free to flame me as I thought ahead and bought a fire-proof trenchcoat. Hah, you can't get me. Harry/Tom lovers, read on!


	2. Waking up in a Past Life

**Author:** Silverhair Theory

**Rating: **M

**Disclaimer: **I nothing. JKRowling owns everything. If you prosecute me all you're likely to get is my sweet stash and my teddy bear, so I wouldn't advise it.

**THE GIFT OF A SECOND CHANCE**

_Chapter One; Waking up in a Past Life_

"Hello? Hello, can you hear me? Wake up, young man. Poppy, go and fetch some Pepper-up potion, will you?"

A kindly voice drifted into Harry's unconsiousness. It was sweet and elderly and made Harry think of roses. He cracked one eye open.

"Ah, there you are, dearie! Welcome back to the land of the living. I dare say you're not feeling to bright and breezy right now, no?" A kind-looking old woman was looking down at him. Her face was creased with smile lines and her eyes were bright and sparkly. Her uniform looked familiar and for a few seconds Harry couldn't place it, then it struck him where he'd seen it before. Madam Pomfrey always wore the exact same robes.

No sooner had Harry thought this, then a young woman, only about eighteen, came out of a side room wearing much the same uniform. Harry took one look at her face and almost fell off the bed. Although she was less plump, her hair was a dark brown rather than grey, and her face was young and uncreased, it was unmistakeably a younger Madam Pomfrey.

"Ma...Madam Pomfrey?" He stuttered before he could stop himself.

"Who? Oh, you mean Poppy there! No, no, she isn't a madam, not yet anyway, she's my apprintice. Poppy, come over and talk to this young man, he seems to know you!" She beckoned the girl over, who gave him an inquisitive and then disdainful look before turning back to her superior.

"I don't know who he is, Madam Kerr. I have never seen him before in my life." Both of the nurses eyes Harry curiously.

"Oh, I...er..." Harry said, quickly, trying to think of an excuse. "I heard someone call her it earlier, as I was waking up." He said quickly, and Madam Kerr's frown cleared, even though Madam Pomfrey continued to look doubtful.

"Well, then, now that you know our names, we would quite like to know yours." The old lady said. " What's your name, can you remember?"

Harry sat there for a few moments, too tense to say anything. He knew that he was doing something terrible even by being here, and didn't know if he should reveal his name or not. If he told them his name he might alter something drasticly in the future, but if he kept his name a secret then he might also have to change his appearance, at least to stop anyone from the future from recognising him. He didnt know what damage he'd already done by letting Madam Pomfrey (Poppy, Poppy, he told himself) see him, and he couldn't imagine what it meant that _Voldemort_, or, if he was to be correct, Tom Riddle, had been the one to find him.

Thinking about the younger Voldemort only tightened the knot in his chest further, and he felt almost suffocated by the pressure of having to think about so many things at once.

The nurse must have noticed his discomfort and tension, becasue she only frowned slightly before taking the Pepper-up Potion out of Poppy's hands. "Here, you poor thing, I don't suppose you'll be feeling quite recovered yet, will you? I must say, you gave me quite a scare when Mr Riddle came hurrying in, supporting you with both arms and asking for a bed to put you on. Far be it for him to ask for help though, he merely put you down and went off again, said something about going to see the headmaster."

She held the bottle next to Harry's mouth and he let her pour it down his throat. It stung and made his eyes water but after he swallowed it a warm, fuzzy feeling replaced the clammy coldness that had settled in his stomach and he felt more awake. Slowly, he pushed himself upright, and noticed he was still in his war-torn hogwarts robes, mudded and bloodied and covering the pristine white sheets with filth.

Madam Kerr seemed to notice his gaze, for she simply chuckled. "No, no, it's all right, we weren't going to change you into a hospital robe, not with Mr Riddle gone to see the headmaster and your robes being very much stuck to you!" She gave a laugh, which sounded almost forced and Harry got the distinct impression that they had tried very hard to remove the robes, but without success as he could indeed feel the slime which coated them sticking to him. He saw Poppy Pomfrey giving the filthy bed a disapproving look, and she strode away to tend to another patient.

"If you don't mind me asking, dearie, what _is_ your name?" The old woman leaned in close, and Harry struggled with himself before answering.

"Its...its..." Harry tried desperately to think of a convincing name, and from the deep recesses of his mind came the name of a character in a book he'd read once. It had been a wizarding novel, a fictional story based on fact. The main character had been intensely interesting, not only for the reason that he shared the same initials with himself. The book had intruiged Harry for weeks and Hermione had been delighted to find him reading. _Hermione_...his stomach tightened again but he pushed the pain away, fighting the nausea.

"My name's Hart Peake." He said, and Madam Kerr nodded, taking out a quill and writing his name down on a piece of parchment which she slipped into her file.

"Hart Peake. Well, then, Mr Peake, now than you're better and I know who I was treating, you need to run along to the headmaster's office. I understand Mr Riddle said that you were to meet him there when you woke up." Harry nodded and climbed slowly off of the bed. He looked at the horrible state of the bed and looked apologetically at Madam Kerr.

"Sorry about the bed." He said, and she laughed and waved her hand at him.

"No, no, its fine, I don't mind. It isn't your fault, and I'll just get Poppy to clean it up. Poppy!" She called, and the girl looked over resignedly as she saw Madam Kerr waving at the filthy bed. She sighed and shot an annoyed look at Harry. He winced as he realised exactly how she grew up to be an obsessive hater of dirt.

He walked over to the doorway and looked around at the infirmary. It was so familiar, and yet subtle differences reminded him that this wasn't his time. The sun was climbing into a deep blue sky outside the windows, the beds were arranged differntly, the patients who weren't grimacing in pain had content, if bored, looks on their faces with no fear or worry in their faces.

_No._ Harry thought. _This is too happy a time to be the one I know._ He turned and left the infirmary. Through the walls he could hear the chatter of students, and the voices of teachers. The corridor outside the infirmary had a gilt mirror on its wall. He walked over to it and gazed at his reflection. His body was familiar, but he knew that if he was to preserve the future and prevent any further damage, he had to change what he looked like. He thanked the heavens that he had listened to Hermione ranting on about Lavender and Parvati's attempts at appearance changes. He was also grateful for Remus' tutoring sessions on wandless magic, as he knew he might not get a wand for a long, long time. He could only do simple and non-crucial spells, but it would be enough.

_"Trans Cappillus._" He said and watched as his hair grew until it was shoulder length. It was still messy and for one heartbreaking moment he saw a flash of Sirius in his reflection. The pain was brief, but it made his heart ache and he pushed back tears. The tears drew attention to his eyes, still the same old startling green colour, and Harry took a deep breath before casting a spell on his eyes.

"_Oculo Reparo._" He said, and his vision was suddenly blurred. He took off his faithful glasses and put them into his pocket, his eyes now no longer having need of them. "_Trans Oculo._" He said, and the colour gradually morphed from the bright green he was used to, to a dark chocolate brown. As Harry stared at himself in the mirror, he felt a strange emotion welling up in his chest as he stared into what could almost have been his godfather's face. Brushing tears from his eyes, he turned and made his way to the Headmasters's office.

The hallways were relatively quiet, Harry assumed because the students were in lessons, but he was glad of it. He didn't want people questioning his ragged appearance or who he was. He reached the door to the Headmaster's Office, grateful that it was still where he remembered it, and stood there, a little unsure of what to do.

Suddenly, without warning, the eagle leapt aside and Harry came face to face with Tom Riddle, who seemed equally surprised to see him. Harry's heart pounded into overdrive at the very sight of the youth, half of his nerves screaming at him to take out his wand and kill the pale teen in front of him, the other half urging him to run away as fast as he possibly could, if not faster. He spoke up quickly to stop himself looking awkward.

"Hey, uh, apparently you, um, wanted to, er, see me?" _So much for not looking awkward_. Harry thought as Tom frowned.

"Didn't you look different when I found you?" He said, eyeing Harry's shoulder length hair. "You had green eyes, I remember." He spoke with the authority of one who is always right, and knew it.

"Oh, yeah, I... wear contact lenses, and I took them out." Harry said the first thing that came into his mind.

"Contact lenses?" Riddle looked confused, and Harry mentally slapped himself. Had contact lenses even been invented in Riddle's time?

"Yeah, they're these things which change your eye colour, and help to correct your eyesight. I don't wear them very often." He gave Riddle a tentative grin and Riddle frowned slightly before shrugging.

"Come on, Headmaster Dippet wants to talk to you." He said, and went back into the small spiral stairway. Harry entered after him and the steps moved underneath them.

It was the strangest feeling, being so close to Tom Riddle. Harry could feel Riddle's sleeve brushing against his own, was acutely aware of the small scraping sound the other teen's shoe made as he shifted his weight slightly on the floor. Being so close to his arch enemy, even if he wasn't his arch enemy yet, was making his head pound and his pulse speed up.

Finally, the doors opened and Harry followed Riddle into the office. Looking around, the room looked much the same as always, except for the lack of the birdcage where Fawkes resided, and the intricate metal devices. Headmaster Dippet looked like he surrounded himself with books, and they had to step round several piles to stand before the desk.

"Please, sit." Dippet said. He was an old man, with a thinning grey beard and small, beady eyes, which were constantly flicking around the room, eyeing his piles of books. He wore plain black robes and was nervoulsy twiddling his hands. Behind him was...

"Dumbledore!" Harry said, and his heart filled with emotion as he looked at the beloved teacher he had not seen in so long, and had believed he would never see again. The man looked well, healthier than Harry had seen him for months before his death, and was smiling slightly, giving both Harry and Riddle curious looks.

"Headmaster, this is the boy I was telling you about." Riddle said, sitting down in one of the wooden chairs around the desk. Harry sat as well.

Dippet frowned at Harry, his wrinkled face creasing even more. "Indeed. What is your name, boy?" The old man's voice was creaky, like a little-used door opening, and as he spoke his eyes twitched.

"Hart Peake, sir." Harry said, and saw Dippet give a little nod of approval at the 'sir'.

"And why are you here, Mr Peake?" He asked, steepling his hands on the desk and gazing at Harry. Harry felt Riddle tense slightly next to him, and knew that he too wanted to know the answer to the question. Why had Harry been lying on the field, early in the morning, covered in mud, blood, and who knew what, and known the name of Dumbledore? Why was he even at Hogwarts?

"I..." Harry said, and stopped. How was he supposed to explain himself? _Oh sir, I travelled back in time from a moment fifty years in the future when Voldemort, who is sitting right next to me right now, was about to kill me after having killed everyone else in the entire school, and all of the members of the Order of the Pheonix, having had a loyal supporter bump off the man who is currently standing right behind you._ No way. He had to come up with a plausible excuse, and quickly, because he could see Dippet beginning to frown.

"I wanted to enroll in Hogwarts, sir." He said, sounding lame. Dippet's forehead creased together in the middle, and Dumbledore raised one eyebrow.

"Enroll in Hogwarts? But if you are of any magical talent at all, we would have selected you when you were eleven. We must have missed you out. Unless...you're not a squib, are you?" Dippet soundeed apprehensive, and Harry remembered how much they hated squibs in Riddle's era.

"No sir, I'm a wizard." Harry said.

"Hmm, but that doesn't explain why you were lying on the field at six o'clock in the morning when Mr Riddle found you.And covered in, well, what looks like...blood?" Harry felt Riddle lean forward slightly to hear the asnwer.

"I went through...I went through the forbidden forest, sir. One of the centaurs had a problem with me." Harry folded his arms and tried to look like he didn't want to talk about it. Dippet shook his head and cleared his throat, and looking behind him Harry thought he saw a flicker of amusement in Dumbledore's eyes.

"How did you get Hogwarts robes, then?" The Headmaster asked, and Harry looked down at the torn black robes he was wearing.

"Madam Malkins, sir." He answered truthfully, and the Headmaster's brow furrowed.

"That new place in Diagon Alley? I heard it only opened last week!"

"Oh, yeah, I was one of the first customers." Harry said, shrugging his shoulders.

"Hmm. You say you're a wizard. Do you have a wand?" Harry froze, reliving the memory of his wand being thrown away into the darkness by Wormtail's spell.

"N...No sir." He said, deflating slightly. Dippet's eyebrows raised.

"You do realise, Mr Peake, that you cannot possibly go to this school without a wand. You need a wand to do magic, you know!" _That's not strictly true. _Harry thought to himself. _I can do wandless magic, but there's no reason why I should tell you that._

"Perhaps Mr Riddle would like to accompany Mr Peake to Diagon Alley this very afternoon to see if we can get a wand for him." Dumbledore's voice came from behind Dippet's chair, and the headmaster jumped slightly.

"Yes, yes, very good idea, Albus. Riddle, what do you say?" He said, smoothing his bead down nervously.

Riddle had hardly moved since the beginning of the interview, and even now he just flicked his eyes up to the Headmaster and back again the the floor.

"I would be willing to do that, Headmaster." He said, rising elegantly from the seat. Harry got up as well, and followed Riddle to the doorway.

"Have fun, boys." Dumbledore's voice came from behind them, and Riddle stepped into the stairwell, Harry follwing quickly after, just in time for the steps to start moving.

When they reached the bottom of the stairs, Riddle set out along a corridor, Harry following. There was silence for a while as Riddle strode ahead, Harry almost running to keep up. Riddle's cloak flowed out a little in a style which reminded Harry scarily of Snape, and there was little sound but the click, click, click of Riddle's shoes and the scuffle of Harry's as he tried to keep up.

They eventually reached the bottom of a long flight of eerily cold steps, and stopped in front of what appeared to be a blank stretch of wall. Riddle leant down and whispered something to a brick, and the wall rearranged itself so that there was an ornate stone doorway there, etched with the sign of a snake curling around the letter 'S'.

Riddle tapped out a complicated pattern on the snake's scales, and it hissed realistically as the door swung open. Riddle turned around in the entranceway and fixed Harry with a piercing stare.

"I warn you, if when you're sorted you're not in Slytherin, you will regret telling anyone about these rooms." He spun back around and strode into the chamber beyond. Harry followed, a little apprehensive. Looking around the Slytherin common room, he was surprised to see that it looked pretty much the same as it had in his own time, from when he had snuck in to interrogate Draco Malfoy about the chamber of secrets. Sure, the armchairs were in different places and some of the portraits on the walls were different, but it looked mostly the same.

Harry ignored the little pang at the thought of Draco Malfoy and the almost-friendship that he had finally shared with the teen in his last term, mainly engineered because of his and Hermione's relationship. He followed Riddle over to the fireplace, not meeting the eyes of any of the inquisitive seventh-years on study breaks who eyed him suspiciously, but weren't brave or foolish enough to question his escort.

They stopped by the fireplace, and Riddle took a handful of green powder than Harry recognised as Floo powder. He tossed it into the fireplace, stated "Diagon Alley!" and disappeared into it. Harry followed him quickly before any of the other Slytherins could ask him anything.

He fell out of the fireplace and onto the cold, hard flagstones of Diagon Alley. He looked up to see Riddle looking disdainfully down at him. He scrambled up and brushed off his robes, giving Riddle a defiant look before striding away from him.

Walking down the street, he got several strange looks and could of hit himself when he realised he was still wearing his torn up Hogwarts robes, covered in who-knew-what.

"I'd recommend getting new robes first, if I were you." Riddle's cutting voice came from ebhind him and Harry spun round with a snarl in his throat.

"Yeah, genuis, except for one problem. _I don't have any money._"

"You do realise that there is a trust fund for people like...people like you." Riddle said. "You just need to go to Gringotts and tell them you need to buy school equipment. With me with you, they probably won't even ask your name. You'll also get seven years worth of money in one go, considering you're in seventh year."

"How do you know that?" Harry asked, puzzled.

Riddle sighed and rolled his eyes as if explaining something to a stupid child. "It's obvious. You act like a seventh year. I know."

Harry rolled his eyes and headed down to the white building that was Gringotts. They entered the building and Riddle went up to one of the goblins and explained the situation. No more than a few minutes later Harry left Gringotts feeling slightly dazed at the feel of the massive money bag at his side.

"Look, I'm hungry, and since it's about lunchtime, I'm going to go and get some food at the restaurant. You can go and shop by yourself, if you want to, or you can join me if you don't." Riddle said, and walked away from Harry, who made up his mind quickly and followed him, wanting to keep the youth in sight.

They made their way to where Harry expected to find Florean Fortescue's Ice Cream Parlour, and he felt a little jolt, like the feeling you get if you step up on the stairs and the step isn't there. Instead of the cheerful red and white building there was a tastful little restaurant with elegant designs on the sides and gilt edges. It was called the _Dragon's Jewel_ and Riddle approached the doors and entered them with such a familiar air that Harry could just tell that he ate here often enough to be easy with the place. He took one last look at his dirty clothes, and entered after him.

They sat at a corner table, in the shadows, and a waiter came and asked for their order. Riddle ordered a prawn cocktail with the Greacian salad with vinigrette and Harry, for lack of an idea on what to get, asked for the same.

They sat in silence for a few minutes, and then finally Riddle spoke up.

"Your name isn't really Hart Peake." He said. It was a statement of fact, not a question, and Harry, dread seeping through him, tried to protest, but Riddle held up one perfectly maicured hand, and Harry fell silent. "I don't care what you told the Headmaster, that old fool would believe you if you told him the sky was pink." He placed his delicate hands on the table in front of them, like white spiders. "I'm not a fool. If you want us to call you Hart Peake, then I'll make sure everyone does. But I know you were lying. I also know that you didn't come through the Forbidden Forest, and that you didn't get those robes from Madam Malkins."

Harry's mouth fell open, and he struggled to close it. "Wha...how..." He said.

Riddle shrugged. "You can't have come through the forest because I placed spells in strategic points throughout it. You would have triggered one of my alarm spells. And I know that you didn't get those robes from Madam Malkins because I happen to be very good friends with the esteemed Madam Malkin's daughter, and she tells me no-one of your description or information came looking for Hogwarts robes. Indeed, they haven't even started selling them yet."

Riddle smiled, lightly, but Harry knew that the threat was in there, and stayed silent. "I don't care if you don't tell me." Riddle said. "Everyone has secrets. Some more than others. You have a lot of secrets, and although I want to know them all, I'm sure I don't need to at the present time. If you won't tell me, then I won't ask, because I hate being lied to." He gave Harry a cold stare which informed him that Riddle could in fact tell when he was being lied to.

"I have a great many secrets also. I would never tell them to someone like you, definitely not if you never got into Slytherin, abecasue even if you did, I'm selective about the ones I choose to tell." The waiter appeared with their food, and set it down before leaving again.

"I feel bound to inform you," Riddle said, picking up an elegant silver fork and taking a calculted bite of the meal. "That every new student in my house has been through this exact same ritual, of me taking them out and buying them lunch. It's a test, you see, and you have passed it." He twirled the fork thoughtfully in one pale hand, his manicured fingernails making a tapping sound on the metal as he turned it.

"I approve of you Hart Peake, although that isn't your real name. That is, I approve of your character. Your appearance..." He gave a disgusted look to Harry's clothing. "Is ghastly. After this exquisite lunch, I am taking you shopping. I have an instinctive feeling that you belong in Slytherin, and we need to get you dressed like one."

Harry wanted to interrupt and say that he belonged in Gryffindor, but then a thought struck him. _Why am I here?_ He asked himself. _I am here to kill Voldemort, or the thing that will become Voldemort. Wouldn't it be far easier if I was in Slytherin? The sorting hat always wanted me to be put there, after all. _And so he said nothing, just concentrating on trying to eat the posh food without looking ungainly or making a fool of himself.

Riddle made polite conversation for the rest of the meal, and Harry made guarded answers, being careful not to tell too many lies. When he did tell a lie, Riddle seemed to pick it up as if on a radar, and his face would darken, before clearing again and asking another question.

After they had finished the food and left the restaurant Harry followed Riddle back down Diagon Alley. To his surprise he was lead right past Madam Malkins and even past the other, less well known_ Richmond's Robes _back to the fireplace by which they had entered.

Riddle took some floo powder out of his robe pocket, and turned to Harry. "You and I both know that we cannot shop in Madam Malkins. And even if we could, she has a...disagreement with me." He scowled and his handsome face twisted in a startlingly familiar way before he cleared his expression again. "I am going to take you to Hogsmeade, where I shop for my robes." He turned back and entered the fireplace, Harry following after.

A few seconds later, Harry fell out of the fireplace again, this time landning on his feet and barely staggering. He looked up defiantly at Riddle and was a little unnerved to see the youth grinning at him in amusement. Then he led Harry away from the fireplace to a small shop, out of the way where Harry had never seen it before.

Looking around, Harry noticed how little Hogsmeade had changed in fifty years. Honeydukes was still there, but Zonko's Joke Shop was nowhere to be seen and instead there was a magical pet shop in its place. They entered the small robe shop and almost immediately there was a hurried little house elf bowed and scraping the floor in front of them, bending so low his long nose brushed the floor.

"Greetings, Master Riddle! We is not expecting you today! What is it that you is wanting?" It squeaked, reminding Harry almost painfully of Dobby. He shut the memory of the poor house elf's death away before it made him cry again.

"I'm not in the mood for you today, Chirly. Get Mr Hardale, now." Riddle said, not looking at the house elf, who squeaked in fright and hurried off into the recesses of the shop. Riddle turned to Harry. "This is Mr Hardale's shop. He is an associate of mine, or rather, his daughter is. I always shop here, because I always get respect here. These people know who I am." He smiled slightly and Harry saw the flash in his eyes. He suspected that the Hardales were simply scared of Riddle, tall, pale and foreboding.

A short man came in from the dark space behind the counter, and nodded to Riddle, perhaps a bit lower than you might usually, so that it was more like a bow. Riddle smiled indulgently, and Mr Hardale straightened up, relief flashing across his face.

"What can I do for you, Mr Riddle?" He asked. His voice was low and quiet, Harry could barely hear him.

"Mr associate, Mr Peake requires Hogwarts robes." Hardale regarded Harry, and Harry could see him mentally turning his nose up at the filthy state of him. "He's going to be in Slytherin, with me." Riddle prompted, and Hardale seemed to realise he'd been staring. He jumped slightly and beckoned for them to come behind the desk, leading them through to a small antechamber where he got Harry to stand still in the centre of the room. Riddle leant against the wall.

Hardale flicked his wand at a tape measure, quill and notebook, which took Harry's measurements, and then the man picked up the notebook, muttering to himself under his breath. He went inot a small room off the side of the chamber and returned a few seconds later with a set of Hogwarts robes, which he handed to Harry. He pointed out a small room off of the side and Harry entered it to change.

When he had taken off his dirt covered robes, he relaised that he had a problem. Although he didn't want to continue wearing them, the protective black dragon-hide layer of clothing was stuck to his skin with the slime of the battlefield. There was no way he was removing it without taking his skin off as well, unless he went for a swim or a bath and peeling it off bit by bit.

Shuddering, he replaced the torn robes with the new ones. As he was putting them on, he noticed subtle changes in the design from what he was used to. Not significant, but the collar was slightly wider, the clasp shaped differently. If he was going to keep questions from being asked, he needed to be careful about what he did with the robes from the future. He also had to be very careful with his full body dragonskin, as he remembered being told in his own time that it was only a very recent development. He folded the torn robes up very carefully, and finished putting the new robes on.

When he had put on the new robes, he looked at himself in the mirror. It was amazing. The slight change in the style of robes, the change in the length of his hair and the colour of his eyes made him seem like a totally different person. He nervously patted his hair, and stepped out of the room.

"Much better." Riddle said, eyeing the new robes approvingly. "Mr Hardale?"

"Oh, yes, much better." The old man said hurriedly, and Riddle nodded. "Now, if you'll come through..." He led them back though to the front room and Harry paid him. As they were leaving, he noticed Riddle looking him up anddown, eyeing his new robes, with a slight frown creasing his features.

"What?" Harry asked.

"Hmm. I'm just trying to work out something. Even through all that filth, there was something about those robes you were wearing earlier that just wasn't right. I'm trying to work out what's different." Harry thought of the differences in the styles of robe, the noticeable but undefinable changes that Riddle must be noticing, and mentally gulped.

"Really? It's probably nothing. Right, next thing I need is a wand." Harry said, desperately trying to change the subject. Riddle frowned, then his face cleared and he nodded.

"Right. We'll have to go back to Ollivanders. It's the only decent place to go for wands." This time Harry led the way back to the fireplace, holding his hand out to Riddle for some floo powder. Riddle stared at it, as if unsure of what to do and then grudgingly took a handful of powder out of his pocket and shook inot Harry's waiting palm. Harry threw the poweder into the fireplace and set out back to Diagon Alley.

As soon as they left the fireplace Harry landed with almost as much grace as Riddle, striding to the place where he knew the wand shop would be. He got a sense of pleasure from hearing Riddle having to hurry a little to keep up, and walked a little faster. He entered the shop and for the second time in his memories the sound of the putside world dropped away into the background, until he was simply in silence, with the faint breathing of Riddle behind him.

"Can I help you?" A familiar voice said. Harry smiled, shaking his head slightly, and looked up at the man who he knew was standing in front of him, although he had not seen him appear. Ollivander had not changed in the slightest in fifty years and he was exactly the same as Harry remembered him.

"Yes. I need a wand." Harry said.

"I see. Hmm..." Ollivander said, examining Harry with the careful, curious look that Harry remembered so well. "Perhaps..." The man bustled off into one corner of the room, completely in the opposite direction to where Harry knew his wand lay, waiting for him. He contemplated the idea of telling Ollivander whis wand was to be his, but decided against it on the grounds that it would look too suspicious. Instead he just kept his eyes on the box which he knew contained what was his, absent-mindedly obeying Ollivander's instructions and knowing that they would not work.

The man took a lot longer to find the correct wand than he had in Harry's time. Perhaps it was because to Ollivander, Harry was just another student, and there was no reason why the partner wand to Tom Riddle's should go to him. However, eventually the man entered Harry's focus and removed the precious box from it's shelf. When he opened it Harry almost laughed to see his wand shining and new, never used. It had been a long, long time since his wand had looked like that, and it had been covered in far worse things than troll bogies.

He picked the wand out of its case, and smiled slightly as he felt the rush of power and warmth that he had only felt once before. The wand had recognised its partner, even fifty years too early, and it was happy to be with him. Harry looked up at Ollivander, who gave a thin, satisfied smile, and took the money Harry offered to him. Then he disappeared back into the recesses of the shop, and Harry walked out of the door, hand still wrapped round his faithful wand, enjoying the afterglow of the connection, barely noticing Riddle still following him.

Tom Riddle watched Hart Peake. Tom was puzzled, and Tom did not like being puzzled. If you were puzzled you did not know everthything there was to know, and ignorance was a weakness that could not be tolerated. And yet, Hart Peake was puzzling him.

Most people Tom found it easy to puzzle out. Everyone had desires, a goal, a dream, an ambition, even those who might know that it would never come to pass. All you had to do to control somebody was work out what motivated them to do the things they did, to act the way they did, to help those they did and to hate those that they did. Once you knew that, you could persuade them that whatever you wanted them to do was in their interests, and once people thought they were doing something for their own gain you just sat back and let events run their course.

And that was why Hart Peake was puzzling him. So far, the youth walking in front of him had not shown the slightest desire to do anything. Oh, he had _said_ that he wanted to join Hogwarts, and Tom was sure that he did, but at the same time he knew that the desire to join Hogwarts was not the main thing driving him, just a way to gain the means to accomplish the final goal. And Tom didn't know what that goal was.

Many people he had met had been so simple that they flaunted their dreams openly, shoving them in people's faces like a begging bowl in the hope that some sympathy from would be offered and a way to get what they wanted. Tom very rarely helped or even associated with these people. They were weak, and more trouble than they were worth.

Then there were those who were more conservative with their hopes, not making them publicly known but having them available on display for anyone who wanted to see, like special items a shopkeeper only brought out on request, in the hope that the one who asked would have done so because they wanted to help, and would do so. These sorts of people were more acceptable, but still annoying, because once you had enquired they would not leave you alone, bewitched by the hope that their dreams might be fulfilled.

Those who were really conservative with their dreams were those that Tom liked best. The individuals who had enough sense not to flash their desires around, and enough understanding to not expect all who looked upon their hopes to want to fulfill them. You only got to look at these treasures if you asked, and persisted until they were sure of your interest. When a _secret_ hope or dream was showed, it made the idea special, and usually worthy of interest, if not help.

It was the fourth class of people who he really despised. The beggars were weak and pointless, helpless and only destined to be ignored. The shopkeepers were annoying, and had to be steered clear of because at the smallest indication they would become more pitiful than the beggars. The secretkeepers were acceptable, and more than that, usually he enjoyed the challenge of finding out personal information about his companions.

It was the closed walls that he encountered that he didn't like. These were people who would not show their dream to anyone, no matter how hard they pressed, inquired or wheedled. Sometimes they were secretkeepers who were far more conservative than they needed to be, and sometimes the secret was too terrible to tell.

But Tom couldn't work out what category Hart Peake came under. The teen had desires, everyone had, it was what kept you moving. Without desire people became empty shells, and walked down a short path to self-destruction. Hart Peake was not self destructive, it was evident in the way he moved, with purpose, with clarity, as if he was at home with himself, not fighting to find meaning and desire in his life.

Hart Peake was a mystery. _No! Not a mystery!_ He fiercely reprimanded himself. Myteries had power, and no-one was going to have power over him. Hart Peake was... a puzzle. One that he was going to work out.

But the teen was so _strange._ In the shop, while Ollivander had been bustling around, opening and closing boxes and carefully handing his precious toys to the youth, who had simply held out his hand like he was expecting them. But while the youth's actions had been carefully reciprocative, enough to assure Ollivander that he was taking an interest, his eyes had actually been fixed on a certain place the entire time. Indeed, a certain box. Tom had watched him for the whole half an hour that they were in there, and not once did the teen's eyes ever waver from one particular box. Eventually, Ollivander had gone to the corner that the unflinching gaze had been focused on and picked out the very box that his companion had been watching. When the wand had been offered to him there had been a delight evident in his eyes that was disconcerting. Surely no-one could be _that _pleased to receive a wand? But it wasn't the fact that the youth had a wand now, either. It was that particular wand that had incited the reaction, and Tom knew it was because his companion had spent the whole time in the shop staring at it, even through the box. It was the expression in the brown eyes that had been most disturbing.

It had been like Hart Peake had _recognised_ the wand. _Recognised_, and knew it like a wizard known his wand after years and years of use. That was impossible, and yet he had seen it, seen it in his companion's eyes as he paid for the wand, seen it as he held it tightly even after leaving the shop. And that wasn't the only puzzlement.

There were other things about the teen that he didn't understand as well. Many of them were centered around the youth's appearance. Tom kept running it over in his mind but he couldn't see anything that made it any more comprehensible.

He had been taking an early morning stroll, just having come off of his night duty shift. He had known that he would not sleep until the following evening, and so had taken a walk with the idea of freshening his senses and keeping himself alert.

He had just been walking down to the edge of the lake when he had seen Him. He had been lying on his back, sprawled in a spreadeagled position near to the water, on the hard dry earth, brushed fleetingly with soft grass, that spanned the distance from the edge of the trees to the muddy shallows next to the lake. Tom had run over, perhaps in some semblance of Head Boy protectiveness or perhaps just because he was curious.

The teen had been unconsious, Tom could tell, but only on the edge of it, because behind closed eyelids there had been movement. Tom had knelt down and gently shaken the person, speaking to them, tryng to find out whether they were alright. It was while he was trying to wake them up that the strangeness of their attire had struck him.

They had been wearing Hogwarts robes, without a doubt, they had had the school crest emblazoned on them. But somehow the shape of the garment wasn't quite right, it hung differently, to the robes worn by himself and his fellow students. And then there was the garment itself. There were rips and tears all round the bottom of the robes, as if it had been torn out of many grasps and had been ripped purposefully as well, though for what reason he couldn't fathom, unless it was to provide bandages, which would have fitted with the youth's story of having trekked thorugh the forbidden forest.

But that was another thing. _No-one _went through the forest. It was simply too dangerous. No-one knew exactly how far it stretched, or what exactly was inside it, because for those brave few who had dared enter, they had come back cold, shivering with fear and alone, unable to talk about what they had seen, only to say that they had somehow gotten lost. Those who came back at all, that was. So why would someone willingly go through it, when there was a perfectly viable way from Hogsmeade? The teen had certainly seemed at home enough when Tom had taken him there. No, Hart Peake _couldn't _have come through the forest.

But that meant that what had ripped and torn his robes had been something else. And that meant that something else had covered the teen in slime. Some of the ghastly stuff had come off on Tom's hand when he shook the person by the lake, and he'd had to change his robes after carrying the limp form to the infirmary. The slime had been made mostly of mud, and what amounts of it! It was like the robes had been dragged through a mire, and a foul smelling one at that. But then there was another thing mixed with the mud. Blood. Tom had enough expertise to tell if blood came from the person who was carrying it, and although the teen had had wounds, they had been mostly internal, and those that were on the outside had been nothing like large enough to create the amounts of blood that had been on him. The blood hadn't been his. It hadn't all been human either. From his extra-curricular...activities, Tom could recognise the sight and smell of vampire blood, werewolf blood, giant blood and other blood from various magical constructs. There was a lot of snake's blood too. And that was only the non-human side of it. Most of the blood had been from humans, from wizards.

What did that make this teen then? Was he a murderer, to have so many people's blood on him? Was he a fighter, in a conflict that used magical creatures? Or was he a victim, having been assaulted and covered with the blood as a side effect of his assault? The simple answer was that Tom did not know, and that was irritating him.

Even if you ignored the evidence on the clothes, there was still something strange about the way the teen had acted when he had finally regained consiousness. When the youth's eyes had flickered open and focused on the figure kneeling over him, he had reacted in a most peculiar way. For a moment the eyes had become impossibly wide and the mouth had dropped open in utter shock and complete horror. A strangled yell had been choked out of the mouth and the youth had crawled backwards, nearly falling over himself as he fought to get away from Tom, who had been extremely confused by the reaction.

He wasn't that scary looking, although many of the Slytherin's assured him otherwise. Alright, so his almost totally white skin and raven hair made a sharp and keen contrast, but it wasn't terrifying enough to merit the kind of fear that the youth had been regarding him with.

Tom had brushed aside the confusion, determined to ignore it, and had held out a hand to help the teen up, as he was still on his back on the ground, and introduced himself.

The eyes had widened further, even though he had thought that it wasn't possible, and trembling had shaken the whole body, before it collapsed onto the hard ground again, the eyes rolling back in the head.

The fact that the youth had fainted needn't have been distressing, if the wounds on him had been painful. But the fact was that although there had been wounds, they hadn't been enough to make someone faint, and Tom was sure the reason had been emotional. The reason he was puzzled and slightly disturbed was that the first time the teen had looked at him, when he had first opened his eyes and looked up at his discoverer, a horrified emotion flickered through them.

The flicker had returned as the teen gave him a once-over and became a constant thing, but still not whole, as if whatever truth it was telling was being desperately denied. But then he had held out his hand, and the youth had given it an incredulous look, and turned back to Tom as he introduced himself.

The moment he said his name to the teen on the ground in front of him, the last barriers in those eyes had fallen, and the emotion filled up the green orbs, growing and growing until they overflowed, and that was what had made the youth faint.

But the thing that disturbed him most was the emotion that was showed in the eyes. It was puzzling, it was disturbing, and it was almost worrying him. He never worried. Not about anything. The motion in the eyes had been the same as when the teen had seen the wand which had become his.

Hart Peake had _recognised _him.

Tom didn't know how.

He didn't know why.

But he was going to find out.

Harry walked down Diagon Alley, ignoring the people that pushed around him, enjoying the feeling of having his wand back in his hand. He was no longer getting weird looks, now that his robes were new and clean, and as he made his way back to the fireplace he enjoyed the totally amazing experience of no-one noticing him.

Even in his own time it hadn't been like this. In his own time, wherever he went there were people looking at him, doing double takes as they noticed his scar, small children asking their parents if that was really Harry Potter, older wizards treating him as the Boy-Who-Lived before anything else. That was something nice about this time. Nobody knew him, nobody cared about him, nobody was forcing responsibilities he did not really want on him, nobody was asking him questions he couldn't answer...

Well, nearly nobody. He knew he hadn't got away from the questions in Dippet's office that easily. The wizened Headmaster might be content to let Riddle induct him into Hogwarts life and leave it at that, he was sure that he had piqued Dumbledore's interest. He knew he could expect an enquiry with the old man, and he wasn't really looking forward to it. While it was wonderful to see the man alive, Harry knew he was walking a knife edge just by letting himself be seen, and he didn't want to change the future too badly. If he had to use memory charms on certain people before he left this time, then so be it.

Speaking of which, how was he going to get back to Hogwarts? After using it, the tiny golden time-turner he had used to get here had refused to move, even to bounce Harry a couple of hours back or forward. It looked like unless he could get it working again, he was stuck in this time.

_Ah, well._ He thought, brushing the doubts and worries away with more ease than should have been possible. _I haven't done what I came to do yet, have I?_

Harry became aware that he was just standing next to the fireplace, staring into space, and that Riddle, who was standing next to him, was giving him an intense look. What was with all that staring, anyway? Riddle had hardly taken his eyes of Harry since he had dressed in his new Hogwarts robes.

"What are you staring at?" He said, and Riddle started slightly before looking away, and Harry was surprised to see a faint colour on the pale cheeks.

"When are we going back to the castle?" The pale teen asked, and Harry smiled slightly at the obvious change of subject.

"Right now." He said, and taking out floo powder, threw it into the fire before steeping in afterwards.

When they reached Hogwarts and stepped out of the Slytherin fireplace, the common room was completely empty. Harry rasied an eyebrow at Riddle, who simply said "Dinner time." by way of an explanation and walked across the room to the wall where the door was concealed. "Are you coming?" He asked, and Harry grudgingly followed.

They made their way back to the headmaster's office, and Tom simply tapped on the eagle's head before it leapt aside and they ascended he stairway. When they entered the office Dippet was not there, but instead Dumbledore stood in front of the desk, as if waiting for them.

"Ah, boys, you made it back. I trust everything went well?" He questioned, and Harry brought out his new wand and waved it at Dumbledore. He saw the man's eyes squint for a second, focusing on the wand, then widen slightly before reverting back to their usual shape. "I see. Well, Mr Peake, the arrangements for this evening are quite simple. Mr Riddle will be going back to Slytherin dorms, for one night only, and sleeping in the spare bed in the seventh year boys dormitory. You will be taking the Head Boy's quarters, for one night only. Tomorrow morning before breakfast you will report to the headmaster's office where you will be Sorted, and then further arrangements can be made. Mr Riddle, you will have your dormitories tomorrow night."

Both boys nodded and then Dumbledore dismissed them with a wave of his hand as he turned back to what he had been doing before, staring at all the pictures around the walls, of the previous headmasters. Harry bit back a grimace as he saw his future Headmaster's eyes pass over the place where one day his own portrait would hang, and give advice to him before the final battle, tell him how much he hoped Harry would succeed, how he knew that Harry would do it, that Harry would win...

He'd failed him though. He hadn't won, he hadn't succeeded and now, in a future somewhere, everyone he had ever known or loved was lying in a pool of their own blood, eyes blank and lifeless, and it was all because he'd _failed..._

Tom watched the boy known as Hart Peake cry. He cryed silently, and if Tom hadn't looked, he wouldn't have known that there were tears silently falling from the other teen's eyes. He stayed silent, saying nothing, and simply watched the tears as they fell, crystal clear and almost beautiful in their purity.

How could such a puzzling, sorrow-filled man cry such beautiful tears? Each sparkling diamond slipped past tiny black lashes down creamy, pale skin, following the lines of the high cheekbones and tracing the edge of the pink lips turned downwards in a grimace of sorrow, before trickling down the contour of the jaw and disappearing down the long pale neck to the top of his robes, where one pale collarbone was visible.

Tom caught himself before he fell, before he let himself entertain the thought of where the tear went _after_ that. Those thoughts were too dangerous. Instead he resolutely forced himself to look where he was going, to lead them to his quarters, where Hart Peake would be staying for the night.

They reached the quarters, and stood awkwardly outside the doorway. Tom could tell that the other teen wanted to go in, but they both knew that there was something not quite right about the youth sleeping in these rooms. Finally, Tom pulled himself together and turned to the portrait of a beautiful woman with blonde hair, who was reclining on a red velvet couch.

"Knowledge is Power, Medea." He said and the beautiful woman inclined her head, graciously.

"Indeed, Tom. You may enter, and your friend. I am sorry, your associate." She corrected herself and took a peach from the fruit bowl beside her couch, munching on it as she swung inwards. Tom stepped into the rooms beyond and saw that Hart Peake followed him.

"Did you tell Medea to call people who accompany you associates rather than friends?" The question came from behind him and as Tom turned he saw the the other boy wasn't really paying attention but staring around at the rooms. And he had to admit, they were impressive.

Most of the surfaces were draped in silver, green or black. The room was fairly small, as it was only the hallway, and leading off of it were three rooms. One room was the bathroom, the other was his study, which was also draped in green, with a serpant motif everywhere. There was a comfy couch in the corner, which he indicated to his companion.

"You can sleep on that. I'd rather you didn't sleep on my bed. I'd also rather you didn't go in my room." There was a hint of a threat in that voice, Tom had made it just enough to frighten by not enough to merit reaction. But the other teen didn't seem fazed by the voice at all, simply nodded slightly and went back to staring all around him at the luxurious drapes and hangings. "I don't think the headmaster wants you to go down to eat until after you've been sorted. It'd cause problems." Tom said. He was trying to get the youth to react, and was faintly disappointed when he remained silent and continued looking around at the room. Tom sighed. "Just so you know, you can call for a house elf to bring you food, and anything else you might want. Goodnight, Hart Peake." He left the teen staring at the room and exited the Head Boy dorms.

As he went down to dinner, he carefully probed his thoughts about the young man who was currently in his rooms. The teen had by now probably stopped staring at everything and started fiddling. Tom winced slightly at the thought of his precious library of books coming under the scrutiny of another. He was fiercely protective about his books, and even when he let people come into his quarters and sometimes touch or read the books, they were never allowed to remove them. Tom valued his books highly, and the thought of the other teen running his pale fingers along the spines of his favorite tomes was enough to make him shudder.

He entered the Great Hall, and went over to the Slytherin table to sit with his usual companions. He was late, but they had saved a place for him, right in the middle of the table and their group, where he would be the centre of attention. He smiled inwardly. They knew him well, those precious few who he might go so far as to call friends.

After dinner, he went back with the other seventh year Slytherins. There was a spare bunk in their dormitory, ever since Tom had left to go to the Head Boy quarters, and as he changed inot his night-clothes it was just like being back in sixth year. The others in the room seemed happy enough to have him back, and although they didn't talk as they got ready for bed, there was mutual support and comfort, should he have needed it, waiting for him in those people.

All the seventh year boys were his 'associates'. There was Rupert Nott, Vladimir Tenshi, Azul Malfoy and Jeremy Crabbe. All of them were utterly loyal to him, and they were what he considered his 'friends', if he had any. Some of the seventh year girls were alright as well. Pearl Goyle was certainly very taken with Jerry Crabbe, and Vivian Parkinson, along with her friend Patricia Black, were also dedicated to him. He wasn't too sure about the other girls, but they seemed amiable enough and would do what they were told when ordered.

He lay in his bunk, on his side, staring at the green linen drapes that obscured the rest of the world. He could hear Jerry's snoring, surprise surprise, and was vaguely aware of Azul Malfoy pottering about in the bathroom, probably fixing his hair, and the sounds that had signified his home for six long years all rushing back and surrounding him. He sighed slightly, as close to content as he had been in a while, and let sleep take him.

Harry was a little nervous about sleeping in Tom's dorm rooms. Who knew what kind of stuff the young Voldemort kept around him. Harry half expected to find nasty potions in the bathroom, or on the table in the study, but was surprised to find only the things you would expect in a wizarding house.

There were even a few blatantly muggle touches, like the wizarding radio tuned to Classic FM rather than the Wizarding Wireless Network, and, even more disturbingly, a _rubber duck_ next to the shower. Harry had felt a full five minutes staring at it, and was still freaked out by it even then. The thought that the terrifying Lord Voldemort had had a _rubber duck _when he was seventeen was almost enough to send him into hysterical giggles, undignified though it was.

Eventually he had made up the couch into a bearable bed, and was just extinguishing the candles when he saw, out of the corner of his eye, the door to Tom's room. Harry stared at the door, unable to keep from asking himself why Tom had forbidden him from going in. Surely if he wanted Harry to stay out then there was something in there that was worth seeing?

As he lay there in the almost pitch blackness, the room only lit by the faint sliver of moonlight creeping through the drapes over the window, he couldn't stop wondering what might be behind the door. The plans for the Death Eaters might be there. Some incriminating piece of evidence which would get Tom chucked out of Hogwarts, ruining his rise to power, or maybe even the journal which would ensnare Ginny Weasley in fifty years time.

The night ticked on, and Harry still couldn't sleep. The whole castle was quiet now, he estimated it must be about one o'clock in the morning. He pushed his face into the pillow and tried to think sleepy thoughts. He tried counting sheep, counting hippogriffs, counting upwards in his head, thinking about the lectures Professor Snape used to give, but none of these were enough to bore him to sleep.

So he lay there, staring up at the ceiling, the room calling to him from across the hallway, and wondered if Tom was sleeping, or if he was lying awake in an unfamiliar bed just like himself. He lay there, thinking of nothing until exhaustion made his eyes close and he slept.

Author's Notes: Woo! Chapter one done, yay! Sorry there's no action yet, but I need to build up some emotional depth before I start giving them naughty dreams evil smirk. Review people, tell me what you think! whispers Don't tell anybody, but this is my first slashy fic. Is it okay? I need to know!


	3. New Aquaintances and Old Enemies?

**Author:** Silverhair Theory

**Rating: **M

**Disclaimer: **I nothing. JKRowling owns everything. If you prosecute me all you're likely to get is my sweet stash and my teddy bear, so I wouldn't advise it.

**THE GIFT OF A SECOND CHANCE**

_Chapter 2: New Aquaintances and Old... Enemies?_

_Harry dreamed. He dreamed he was in the forest, and the trees were thick above him, rustling and murmuring like they were talking to each other. Harry was walking in between them, and roots and branches kept reaching out to trip him over. He skipped over them, and the trees seemed to press in closer, until he was fighting his way though a small green tunnel, made of leaves, which turned autumn brown, then rotted into black and fell apart, and he was standing in a clearing, with the moon shining down onto the person in front of him, and it was Voldemort._

_The older Voldemort, complete with perfect white skin, no hair, snakelike appearance, flashing red eyes, and the familiar wand in his hands. But this Voldemort was not wearing the customary black robes that he wore in every other dream Harry had ever had of the man, and instead wore a Slytherin Hogwarts robe. He was smiling at Harry. Not smirking, smiling, and Harry felt bewildered as the man stepped forward and reached out a hand._

_He didn't move, felt he couldn't move, as the icy cold fingers touched him lightly on the forehead, on his scar. It didn't hurt like it had before, in the graveyard where Cedric died, and Harry vaguely wondered why. Instead the touch was more like a caress, and all the long fingers stroked the scar Harry felt little tingles, like tiny bolts of electricity, running down his spine._

_He closed his eyes, and Voldemort laughed softly, not like Harry remembered it from his own time, but more how he imagined Tom would laugh, if he ever did. He opened his eyes and was shocked to see that Voldemort had changed. The fingers that were stroking his scar were the same, still long, cold and pale, but the face had changed, and now Harry was looking into Tom's face, exactly the way he was in the time Harry was in now, seventeen and full of youth._

_Tom took him fingers away from Harry's forehead, and for a few seconds Harry would have done anything to have them back, have the fingers stroke his scar again. Tom seemed to read his mind and laughed, again that soft, quiet chuckle._

_"No, Harry. It's almost time for you to go back. You need to be sorted into Slytherin." Tom said it without a trace of a doubt, as if it was obvious that Harry would be in Slytherin. _

_"Won't I be in Gryffindor?" Harry asked him, and Tom just laughed again._

_"You? A Gryffindork? Hah, you could pass yourself off as a Gryff, but you're a slinky serpentine Slytherin inside. Like me." Tom smiled at Harry, and the part of Harry that knew this was a dream asked himself how he could be imagining Tom smiling, when he hadn't seen it done it in real life._

_"I don't want to go back. It's nice here. Peaceful." Harry said, and Tom laughed again, thoguh this time there was a slight bitterness to the voice._

_"You can't stay here, Harry." Tom stepped closer to Harry, and Harry could feel the other boy's breath on his face, warm against the cold night. He shivered, and Tom laughed again, and stepped even closer. Now they weren't more than an inch apart, and Harry had a sudden revelation that if he were to move just slightly, he would be kissing Tom._

_Tom smiled again, and brought his hand up to cup Harry's face. For one crazy second, Harry thought Tom might actually kiss him, and his heartbeat rocketed. "You can't stay here, Harry." Tom repeated, lifting his hand and brushing Harry's scar, sending more electric tingles down him spine. _

_"You have to kill me, remember?"_

_Tom dreamed. He dreamed he was in the forest, sitting in the branches of a big old tree. The leaves above him rustled and whispered, as if they were telling him secrets. He leaned into the trunk, but he couldn't understand what the trees were saying. Swinging his legs over the branch, he looked down. Standing on the ground, almost directly underneath him, was Hart Peake. The boy was carrying something wrapped in black silk, and he laid it down on the ground almost reverently before him. _

_Unwrapping the silk, Tom saw that it was a black box, made of some shiny metal that almost glowed in the moonlight. Hart Peake opened the box slightly, and out of the box came light, bright, blinding white light, so bright Tom had to shield his eyes. He saw through his fingers that Hart Peake dodn't seem in any way disturbed by the light, indeed he didn't even seem to notice it. The boy reached into the box and pulled out a handful of whatever it was that was shining so brightly. He held it tightly in his fist before closing the box, and Tom took his hand away from his eyes._

_The other boy unclenched his fingers slightly, and peered at his hand. He then stood up, and looked straight at Tom. Tom almost fell off of the branch, he was so surprised, and was even more suprised when Hart Peake smiled at him. Smiled! Then he held his hand flat, and blew across it, like you might blow a kiss to a lover, and thousands of tiny particles of light flew up and surrounded Tom, flitting around and seeming to fill his vision._

_He tilted, and fell off of the branch, down, down, down, until he landed in what felt like an embrace. He rubbed at his eyes, and the white stuff cleared, enough to let him see that he'd fallen right into Hart Peake's arms, and that the boy was smiling at him. He raised his eyes to the white particles still floating around, and found that they'd vanished. when he looked down, however, he saw that they had in fact moved, and were now clustered around where his heart was, under his robes, and all over his hands and head. They sank into the skin, feeling like drops of light rain, and Tom found the sensation pleasant. He looked again at Hart Peake, who put him down so that he was standing._

_"I'm sorry for intruding..." He began to say, but Hart put a thin hand out and touched his lips once, just lightly, and Tom stopped talking. Hart smiled at him, and he smiled tentatively back, causing the smile of the other boy's face to widen. _

_"Don't worry." Hart said. "I was just going anyway." And with that he stopped down to pick up the box, then turned away, walking down a path Tom hadn't seen before._

_"No, wait!" Tom said, but he said it a second too late, Hart was already gone, and Tom was alone in the forest, the big tree hanging over him, shielding him from the rain that gently started to fall._

Tom woke with a start. He lay still for a second, the dream still vivid in his mind. It had been one of his special dreams, he was sure, the ones which _meant_ something. But what had it meant? Why had the new boy, Hart Peake, been in it, and what was the deal with those little light particles? Why, when he had fallen, had he fallen into the other boy's arms, and why had the boy been smiling at him, his eyes shining with something Tom had never seen before. It was close to what he saw in the eyes of his 'friends' sometimes, but stronger. And he was sure that the real Hart Peake hadn't ever looked at him like that.

Yawning, he pushed open his drapes slightly and saw that the early morning glow was lighting the room. He estimated it was about eight o'clock. Jerry, Vlad and Rupert were still snoring from thier beds, and he could hear the shower running in their bathroom, which meant that Azul was probably washing his hair, as usual. He wondered if Hart had got up yet, and remembered that the boy would have gone to be sorted that morning.

Tom had an instinctive feeling that Hart would be in Slytherin. He could tell, usually just by looking at someone, although sometimes he needed to tak to them, which house they belonged in. He had met some mistakes though, and he couldn't understand why several of the Gryffindors weren't in Ravenclaw. There were a couple of Gryffindors and a Ravenclaw who should have been in Slytherin as well.

In school jargon, each house had their own shortened name. They had been there since before Tom had joined the school, possibly they even came from the founder's time, and they just seemed to _stick_ so well. Hufflepuffs nearly all looked like their nickname, the 'Puffs, fitted them so well, and on more than one occasion he had found a 'Claw's talons unsheathed. The Gryffs suited their nickname implicitly, and it was only the Slytherin nickname that he found distasteful. No-one in Slytherin liked the nickname that they had aquired from the rest of the school, and it was an insult if you called a fellow housemate a Snake.

However much he disliked the name, Tom had to admit it fitted well. Mostly. No-one could exactly say that Jerry Goyle was anything like a snake, and the first years got less cunning every year. However, there were several individuals who had a definite snake tendancy to them, himself included. Rupert Nott was frighteningly snake-like on occasions, and Azul Malfoy had quite a few mannerisms which reminded Tom disturbingly of snakes. And it was the house symbol as well.

At that moment Azul came out of the bathroom, with his long platinum blonde hair still dripping down his back, clad in nothing but a towel around his waist, and Tom looked away. If Azul had caught him looking, he would have made some jokingly perverted comment, and Tom didn't want to be on the recieving end. He was wary of relationships, even casual ones, because they led to knowledge and understanding of one another and he didn't want anyone to think they understood him, becasuse that was impossible.

Azul wasn't like that. He was bi, gorgeous, and knew it. More that once Tom had walked in on the other boy in a compromising situation, with persons of both sexes. Tom also knew that Azul had once had a crush on him, and although he had supposedly got over it, he always teased Tom about it. In fact, he teased everyone, and Tom was sure that it wasn't just because he was that kind of person. Really, the boy seemed to have had a crush on _everyone_ except the teachers, and not even all of them had escaped his roving eye.

Tom had never really thought about fancying anyone, because of his attitude to relationships. He had once wondered whether his obsession with Salazar Slytherin was something in the way of a crush, but after carefully probing the subject with Azul, who would know, he had decided it was just an obsession.

He wondered which way Hart Peake swung. Then he wondered why he was thinking it.

"Hey Tom. I can see you're awake. You were checking me out, weren't you?" He heard Azul's comment through his thoughts, and mentally sighed. He hadn't escaped anyway.

"You wish. I was just thinking."

"About what?"

"There's a new kid joining Hogwarts today. In seventh year. He's being sorted this morning, and he's almost guaranteed to be in Slytherin. He's the one who got me put back in here for the night." Tom heard Azul moving around and the sounds of clothing being put on. He determinedly did not look.

"Really? Will he be at breakfast?"

"Probably."

"We should probably go down there now. We can go and check your rooms if you want, he might not know where the headmaster's office is."

Tom knew that Azul was just trying to get a way to see Hart before anyone else. He sighed, just_ knowing_ that Azul would crush on Hart. Then he thought about what Azul had said, and realised something else strange about Hart. The boy seemed to know his way around Hogwarts, even though he claimed to have never been here before. He walked through the corridors like he had done it for as long as Tom had, he knew the way to the Headmaster's office, and Tom guessed he knew his way to the great hall and probably to most of the classrooms as well.

"No, he knows where it is. We went there yesterday. But you're right, we should probably go down. Wake up the others while I get dressed, can you?" He swung his legs over the side of the bed, and went over to take his robes out of the wardrobe, deliberately ignoring Azul's unashamed gaze on him. He wasn't wearing a shirt, being the type of person who prefered to sleep in just shorts, and as he slipped on the robes he heard Azul's slight sigh as the other boy turned away to wake the others up.

Tom waited while the other boys got ready, rubbing sleep out of their eyes and slowly pulling their robes on. Then they all made their way down to the great hall. They were just sitting down and reaching for the food when Tom spied Hart coming in through the doors. He nudged Azul and pointed to where the boy was standing, looking dazedly around at the great hall, at all the people, then scanning his eyes across the teachers table. When he looked over at the Slytherins, Tom raised his hand in greeting and Hart slowly made his way over to them.

_"Hello, what's this then? New student, eh? You're far too old to be in first year... there's something strange about you I don't like... ah well, now, lets see... Hmm, plenty of courage, not a bad mind either, and there's talent, oh yes, lots of talent... Something in you seems to be focused on being a Gryffindor...now isn't that interesting, it's almost like you'd already been sorted, and yet I've never seen you before...Even so, there's something there that's not quite Gryffindor...No, you're not a Gryffindor...Not at all...let's see...Let's go with...SLYTHERIN!"_

The sorting hat's words still echoed in Harry's mind as he walked through the corridors, away from the Headmaster's office. Dumbledore had always said he was a Gryffindor. Always, he had always thought of himself as a Gryffindor, totally and utterly. But the sorting hat had placed him in Slytherin. It had said he definitely wasn't a Gryffindor. Not at all. And it had known that he had already been sorted! The same words echoing in his mind as they had before had unnerved him, and his mind was still spinning.

He entered the great hall and looked about. The tables were still in the same places, everything was exactly the same as he remembered it, except that all the people were different. He looked up at the teachers table and only saw three faces he recognised. Dumbledore, of course, and a very young-looking Flitwick and Sprout were all sitting there, eating calmly. Dumbledore seemed to sense him coming in and looked up, but looked away again when he caught Harry's eye.

Harry looked over to the Slytherin table and saw Tom raise a hand in greeting. He made his way over to the group near Tom, eyeing the people surrounding him. There was Tom, sitting in the centre of the group, eating and watching him walking over. Then there was a little inner circle of people, and Harry was startled to see that he recognised some of the people surrounding him. Well, not recognised, exactly, but he knew exactly which bloodline they came from and who they would sire in the future.

Sitting right next to Tom was a Malfoy, there was no doubt about that. The youth had Draco and Lucius' eyes, and the same platinum blonde hair, worn the same length as Lucius', but in a loose ponytail that might have looked feminine, but didn't. Next to the Malfoy was another blonde, and he was vaguely familiar as well, though Harry couldn't place the name. Sitting across from Malfoy were undoubtedly the ancestors of Crabbe and Goyle, and the boy and girl kept nudging each other and whispering in a way which Harry found disturbing to watch. Next to the female Goyle sat another couple of girls, and Harry recognised them as a Parkinson and a Black. With a jolt he realised that the Black girl was the very same woman who was in the portrait behind the curtain in Grimmauld Place, Sirius' mother, and Bellatrix's aunt. Opposite them, and on the other side of Tom, was another boy with long hair in a ponytail, but it was jet black, and Harry didn't recognise him at all.

As he approached he saw the Malfoy move the other blonde boy aside so that there was a space between Tom and him. Tom however, appeared to have different plans and moved into that place deliberately, indicating that Harry should sit between him and the boy with the long black hair. Harry sat down where Tom indicated, and felt a nervous rush as he realised he was so close to the boy that had been haunting his dreams last night. He had refused to think about the dream when he woke up, on the grounds that he needed to get to the sorting ceremony. He once again blocked the thoughts from his mind, and focused on eating.

Tom made sure that Hart couldn't sit next to Azul, who was giving him a hurt look, which he was ignoring, and let Hart sit down. He pondered on what he had seen as the boy was walking up to them. He had watched the eyes every carefully, as the boy had looked at all of his friends, and had been puzzled when Hart had seemed to recognise something about Azul, Jerry, Pearl Goyle, Vivian Parkinson and Patricia Black. It hadn't been complete recognition, like the thing he had seen in the boy's eyes when he had first cast eyes on Tom, but it was there.

"Good Morning, Hart. This is Azul Malfoy." He began to make the introductions, watching carefully to see the boy's reactions to the people he was being introduced to. When he said the name 'Malfoy' it was like Hart had nodded his head, as if he had known that Azul was a Malfoy without needing to be told. But that wasn't strange, the male Malfoys were known for thie distinctive platinum blonde hair and grey eyes.

Hart and Azul exchanged greetings, though Hart's greeting was almost false, as if he didn't want to get to close to Azul. Azul seemed disappointed by this reaction, and went back to his breakfast, almost sulkily.

"This is Rupert Nott." Something in Hart's eyes seemed to clear, as if he understood something, and he pointedly declined the hand offered him to shake.

"This is Jerry Crabbe." The little spark of recognition flared agin, the same as it had with Azul. He actually took the offered hand and shook it slightly.

"This is Pearl Goyle." The same spark, accompanied by a little half-smile as if he found something funny, but was wary of showing it. He shook Pearl's hand, and bowed his head in respect.

"This is Vivian Parkinson." Again the spark of recogntion, and the bow of the head when he shook the girl's hand, with an added flick of the eyes over towards Azul Malfoy. Tom was a little puzzled at that, it was the kind of look that wondered at a relationship, and how could Hart know that Azul and Vivian were almost unofficially half-dating?

"This is Patricia Black." The spark again, but this time followed by a flash of emotion, and Tom recognised the signs of a vivid memory being replayed. For a split-second, Hart's face was filled with sorrow, but then it was gone agin, and he was shaking the girl's hand, however without the bow of the head.

"This is Vladimir Tenshi." No spark of recognition, indeed puzzlement filled Hart's eyes as he shook the boy's hand.

When everybody had been introduced, Vivian, Patricia and Pearl all huddle into a little bundle and started to talk about something. Vlad went back to his food, pensieve and moody as ever, and Jerry and Rupert started talking about Quidditch. Azul was half joining in, but Tom couyld see that his eyes kept straying to Hart.

"So, you were in Slytherin, just like I said." Tom said quietly to Hart. Hart nodded slowly, and something fogged up his eyes as he puzzled something over in his head. "I'm not often wrong, you know. You could point out to me any student in this hall, minus a select few, and I could tell you which house they were in, just by what they looked like, the way the moved, talked."

"A select few?" Hart said, raising an eyebrow.

"Yeah. There's a couple of people who I think should be in different houses. Apparently the sorting hat doesn't always get it right."

"Like who?" Hart rasied his head, looking at the students critically as Tom was doing.

"See over on the Gryff's table, that girl sitting five seats left of the girl with the blonde pigtails? That girl should be in Ravenclaw. She's got a 'Claw mind, attitude, everything. And that boy near the other end of the table, sitting opposite the twin red-heads? He's got Slytherin blood, I can tell from here. He's actually not a bad guy, I sometimes associate with him when he's not around those infernal Weasleys."

"Weasleys?" The boy next to him said, his fork falling to his plate with a clatter as he looked intensely at the twin red-heads. He seemed surprised, almost enthusiastic about them.

"Yeah. A bunch of blood traitors, they are. There's tonnes of them as well, got a huge family, and Azul doesn't like them. There's a kind of running fight between the Mafloys and the Weasleys, goes back generations, apparently, and probably won't finish anytime soon."

"I know..." Hart said, vaguely, as if he wasn't quite thinking.

"You do?" Tom said, surprised. It wasn't very well known, the rift between the Weasleys and Malfoys.

"I...uh..." Hart stuttered, as if only just realising what he'd said. "I...uh...used to know a Weasley and a Malfoy, and they never got on at all." The sorrow that had flashed across his face when he'd seen Patricia Black appeared again, except this time it was stronger, and lasted for longer. Then, visibly taking him effort, Hart's face cleared, and he turned back to his breakfast, as if aware that he'd let something slip that he wasn't meant to.

They ate in silence for the rest of the meal, and as they were finishing Tom asked Hart what subjects he was taking. "Oh, you know, core subjects and then Divination."

"Same here! That means we'll be in the same classes. We have potions first. Our teacher's Professor Slughorn." Tom said, standing up.

Tom heard a slight choke and looked down to see Hart sputtering. He hit Hart on the back and the other boy coughed before taking a deep breath. "Sorry." He said, and Tom shook his head.

"No, it's okay. Do you know Slughorn?"

"...No." Hart said after a moment. "I've heard of him, is all."

"Ah, right. Lets get to class, shall we?" He got up and Hart followed him, all the way back to the head boy quarters. Hart went inside, and returned a few minutes later with a bag full of books.

"I got the house elves to fetch them for me while I was gone." He explained to Tom's questioning look. They walked to the entrance to the Slytherin common room and Tom turned to Hart.

"Well, now you're officially a Slytherin, you need the password. It's _Dragonfly_." He said, and the wall rearranged itself into the snake door. "You open the door like this." He tapped, slowly so Hart could see, on the first scale, then the fifth scale, then the seventh scale, then the third scale, then the seventh and third scale and the same time. The snake hissed and the door opened.

They entered the common room, and went down the stairs to the seventh year boys dorm. Tom packed his stuff together while Hart wandered around the room, looking at things. "Who uses _Heavenly Hair Syrum_?" Hart asked from the bathroom, and Tom almost grinned, most unlike him, at the expression in the other boy's voice.

"Azul does. He is obsessed with his hair. He's so like his father." Tom said, pulling books into a bag. He thought he heard Hart muttering to himself, and listened hard.

"...too right. Just like his son as well. And his grandson." Now that didn't make sense. Was he talking about Azul's son? Grandson? But Azul didn't have kids, let alone grandchildren, and as far as he knew didn't plan to for quite a few years, until he'd found himself a respected member of society to hitch up with. Tom wondered what Hart could possibly be talking about.

He pulled the last few things into his bag, but instead of calling, he picked up the bag and went over to the bathroom door, sneaking a look inside.

Hart was standing there, in the floor, with the _Heavenly Hair Syrum_ in his hand, his face bowed low and his long hair flopping over his eyes. He appeared to be... crying? If not, he was definitely shaking, his shoulders trembling in sorrow and for a moment Tom wanted to go up to him and put his arms around him and tell him it would be okay.

The second after he thought this he was very worried with himself. He forced himself to push the thoughts away and spoke, softly. "What's wrong, Hart?" Hart jumped at the sound, and looked up, and Tom could indeed see the faint streaks of tear tracks, and wondered what could possibly have sparked such an emotion. The hair goo wasn't that bad.

"Oh... nothing...It's just that the Malfoy I used to know... well, he was like that too, always fussing over his hair. The same as his father. And, well... they're both dead." Hart was shaking, and Tom took a step forward and hesitantly put a hand on Hart's arm. Hart didn't seem to notice and kept on standing shaking his head as, no doubt, the memories washed over him. "They died right in front of me, as far away as you are now, and I couldn't do a thing to stop it." Ah, so that was it. A guilt trip. Merlin, how many of those had Tom been down. But they were self-destructive and he needed to get Hart out of it now before they were late to class.

"Was it your hand that killed them?" Tom asked, quietly. Hart shook his head slowly. "Then it wasn't your fault, was it." Hart did nothing, just standing there, hanging his head. "Was it?" Tom enquired.

"No..." Hart said.

"Whose fault was it?" Tom asked, curious, and was shocked to see Hart turn his face to him, staring at him with the eyes that seemed to have seen so much. Though unspoken, the words seemed to arrive in his mind without his encouragement, but he couldn't understand how it could possibly be true. _You. Your fault. It's your fault._

"No-one. It was no-one's fault." Hart said, sighing and pulling away from Tom's hand. "Come on, we need to get to class." He walked out of the bathroom, Tom heard him leave the room, but was unable to move. How could it be his fault? He didn't know any other Malfoys apart from Azul.

Slowly, he turned around and went back to pick up his bag. He predicted a whole day of thinking ahead of him. Wonderful. At least he knew what he was doing in all the subjects today, so he wouldn't have to pay much attention.

Harry walked down the corridors fast, to the potions classroom. He knew, he just_ knew_ that he'd done some serious damage when he'd told Tom about the other Malfoys, people he didn't know, wouldn't meet until forty years time. It was just that it was so hard, knowing that he might be the only one left capable of saving them.

_And you know you're getting futher and futher away from being able to do that every time you see him._ His mind said, slyly. _You don't _want_ to kill him, do you? Not anymore. Now now you've seen how _human_ he is._ Harry shook his head in frustration, trying to clear the thoughts from his head.

He entered the class, ignoring Slughorn, and went to sit at the back of the class. He took out his books and sat there in silence. A few seconds later Tom came in, looking slightly confused. He saw Harry at the back of the room and came over.

"Mind if I sit here?" Tom said, and Harry shrugged. Tom sat down, and once again Harry had a sudden flashback to the dream, of Tom's hand holding his face, touching his scar, the little tingles running down is back. _No._ He told himself strenly _Now is _not_ the time to be thinking about that._

The lesson started, and Slughorn introduced Harry to the class. Everyone's eyes flicked to him, and then seemed to take in Tom sitting at his side, and turned around again. The class was with the Gryffindors, and Harry's heart ached when he saw the twin red-heads sitting on the other side of the room. They saw him looking, and gave him a filthy look. Harry half felt like crying, and half like laughing, because they were exactly the same as Ron, still prejudiced against Slytherins.

The rest of the day was pretty much the same. Harry found the lessons challenging, but not too hard, and it seemed that they learnt the same sorts of things as in his own time. There were a couple of references to spells he'd not heard of before, but after nudging Tom and asking him the other boy seemed only to happy to show Harry. He suspected Tom was trying to impress him.

The other teachers certainly seemed to think a lot of Tom. He was often asked to demonstrate things to the class, and never got a question from a teacher wrong. Slughorn in particular seemed especially fond of Tom, and Harry found himself wondering if Tom had had the conversation with his teacher about Horcruxes yet.

Thinking about the Horcruxes made Harry sad. They had lost many good fighters hunting down the Horcruxes, and many of Harry's friends had died trying to destroy them. Harry mentally crossed them off in his mind. The diary, the ring, the cup, the snake, the locket, the unknown piece and the one inside Voldemort himself.

The diary had already been destroyed by him in the chamber of secrets. The ring was destroyed by Dumbledore. During christmas break in seventh year, Olympe Maxime had returned, bloody and close to death, from the giant colonies in the north, where she and Hagrid had been trying to discover whether the giants had the cup, as McGonagall believed. The noble lady of Beauxbatons had brought back with her two things, the cup and a lock of Hagrid's hair. She had been weeping and too ill to speak and she had died within hours of returning. Snape destroyed the cup that night, and it was that single act that convinced everyone that he was truly on the side of the light. No-one ever found out what had happened to Hagrid, but he never came back.

The locket, and the initials R.A.B. had remained a mystery, until one night a terrifying explosion tore the ministry of magic apart. It had killed many of the most powerful wizards in the country, and no-one ever found out exactly what had caused it. What was discovered, however, was the locket, lying on its own in one of the rooms of the department of mysteries. It had not been touched, and there was no sign of any struggle or fight. Still, even if the causes were unknown, the offer of the Horcrux was too precious to waste and it was destroyed the same night. There was however an enchantment on it that killed the person who destroyed it, and unfotunately that person had been Snape. Still, McGonagall had said that they should have been glad it was instantaneous, rather than the slow painful death he would have suffered if he had fallen into Voldemort's hands.

The snake and Voldemort had never been killed and McGonagall had known that there would be no chance of that until the final battle. So instead, all the efforts had been concentarted into discovering the final Horcrux, the one which had been suspected to be linked to one of the founders. There had been three wild goose chases, each one turning up nothing, each one costing the side of the light people. Among those who had fallen in the search for the last Horcrux were George Weasley, Tonks, Dennis and Colin Creevy, Lavender Brown, Ernie Macmillian and Professor Sprout. Even a couple of ghosts had fallen prey to the foul creatures that had been guarding the cape of Hufflepuff, which were like little black holes that sucked in light. The Fat Friar and Nearly-Headless Nick had both been 'eaten' by one of the holes, and even when they finally collected the cape, it turned out not to have been enchanted after all.

They had never found the last Horcrux, and had been trying to delay the battle until they had, but eventually Voldemort had attacked Hogwarts and they had been forced to fight for their lives anyway. Harry wondered whether he might be able to discover the Horcrux while he was here.

It was in History of Magic, after Potions and Transfiguration, that Harry had got the exact date from what Professor Binns, now alive but still dreadfully boring, had been saying. It was the 12th of december, which meant that the christmas break started in just over a week, the annual winter dance was due to take place in five days and that the school was mainly in a festive mood.

The annual winter dance was something that had not existed in Harry's time and it was only for sixth and seventh years. It was held on the 17th of december, the night before everybody left for the christmas break, and when he asked Tom about it after hearing a couple of girls discussing it, he reaslised that once again he was going to have to face the humiliation of asking a girl to the ball. Tom laughed when he heard about Harry's fears, a warm, rich laugh, and Harry had been stunned at how different it was from the cold, scraping chuckle of Voldemort.

Tom said, still laughing, that he didn't have to invite anybody. He seemed convinced that there would be girls lining up to be Harry's date, but Harry wasn't convinced. Nobody knew him. Tom tried to assure him that this was precisely one of the reasons why the girls would be so interested, Harry being a veritable unknown, a new territory to be conquered. Harry had been slightly scared when Tom had put it like that, and had made Tom laugh even more.

Honestly, how many times had he faced off against how many types of horrific monsters, powerful wizards and fearsome challenges? And yet, he was still petrified of asking out a girl. He felt like he was in fourth year again, wishing he could have faced a Hunagrian Horntail rather than a member of the opposite sex. Sadly, that was not an option.

During lunch, Harry sat with Tom and the gang, what Harry had subconsiously labled the 'Future Death Eaters'. He brought up the subject of the winter dance again, and asked everyone who they were going with.

Patricia Black was going with her long-time boyfriend and third-cousin, Felonius Black, who she pointed out over on the Ravenclaw table. Harry was quite disturbed when between the two of them they had everything that Sirius would one day be, and felt half-priviliged, half-shocked to realise that they must be Sirius' parents. Vivian Parkinson had been asked out a couple of days previously by a Victor Snape, and Harry had to physically hold himself still when he was pointed out. The elder Snape was startlingly similar to the younger one and Harry felt a rush of relief when he looked back at Vivian and assured himself that he _couldn't_ have met both of the grumpy teachers parents.

Pearl declared outright that Jerry was taking her, and he flushed a deep pink. Azul gave him a grin and congratualted him on getting the courage to ask Pearl, but she spoke up and informed him that she had insisted he take her. Jerry blushed further and slid down in his seat, Pearl looking round, confused as to why people were laughing. The pale boy who Tom had called Vlad said that he was going alone, that he didn't _do_ partners, and when Harry had looked questioningly at Tom he had mouthed 'Tell you later.'

Azul said he was still deciding who to take, and Tom murmured to Harry that he was still trying to decide between three people, his favorite girlfriend, his favorite boyfriend or Vivian's crush, to spite her for refusing to go with him. He pointed out the three candidates and Harry saw a pretty blonde girl who looked remarkably like Lavender Brown, sitting at the Gryffindor table, a handsome chocolate-haired boy with skin the colour of caramel, on the Ravenclaw table, and Vivian's crush, a sixth year Gryffindor boywhose dark, almost black hair was complemented by the lightly tanned skin, making him unmistakeably Blaise Zabini's father.

Harry asked Tom who he was taking and Tom laughed slightly. "I don't take people to dances." He said. "I don't do relationships, and nobody is brave enough to ask me anyway, apart from Azul, and he already knows I don't want him." He said nothing more, and they didn't talk for the rest of the meal, indeed the rest of the afternoon, and it was only after they were packing away their Herbology stuff that Harry realised he would be sleeping in the Slytherin dorms that night, with the ancestors of four of the people who had tried to kill him in the not-too-distant future.

Dinner was a relatively quiet affair, and afterwards Tom left for his quarters and told Azul to look after Harry. Azul put an arm around Harry's shoulders, leading him down into the dungeons and to the Slytherin house. Harry thought that of the three Malfoys he knew, he definitely prefered Draco. Although the boy was whiny, at times, and obsessive about his hair, his father was cruel and callous, definitely not the type of person who would sling their arm around another person's shoulders, as Azul was now. Really, Harry thought Azul was far too clingy and he suspected that Azul might have a crush on him. Well, the blonde boy would just have to be disappointed, Harry was _not_ going to get into a relationship with a person who would be dead by the time he returned to his own time.

Harry changed into his emerald green pyjamas, which he had had a house elf buy for him that morning, along with the rest of his school books and equipment, and sat on his bed, reading. He had borrowed a book off of Jerry Crabbe, who he had been surprised to find was not illiterate, and it was actually quite interesting. It was a school library book, and he made a mental note to go and check the library for books which would not be there in the future, ones which he might never get to read again.

Slowly, the sounds of the common room dimmed and the other boys came in and got ready for bed. Azul disappeared into the bathroom for half an hour and came out with perfectly brushed hair in a white-blonde halo around his head. He tied it up and got into bed, and gradually everyone drew their curtains and went to sleep.

The last thing Harry wondered before he dropped off was whether he would dream again that night.

When Tom went down to breakfast the next morning he was relieved to see that everyone was there, and there appreaed to have been no arguments. He knew how annoying Azul could be, but Hart was talking to the blonde boy quite happily. Tom wondered for a second whether Azul had made his move on Hart the previous evening and for some reason felt a surge of emotion at the thought, something disturbingly like jealousy. He sqaushed the thought. If Hart wanted Azul, and Azul wanted Hart, then why shouldn't they date?

Still, he couldn't help his hands balling into fists when Azul leaned in close to Hart to whisper something in his ear and Hart shivered, just slightly, at the other boy's breath on his neck. He didn't pull away though, and Tom had to fight for control as he itched to pull Hart away.

After breakfast they had Divination, so Tom got a chance to get Hart away from Azul. As they climbed the tower to the Divination rooms, another place which Hart inexplicably seemed to know the way to, Tom asked Hart what he thought of Azul.

"I'm not sure, really." Hart said, frowning. "He's alright, I suppose, but he keeps hitting on me." Tom inwardly chuckled at the confusion in the boy's voice, and something inside him mused that there might be hope after all. Tom quickly crushed the thought.

"So you don't like him then?" He said, a part of his dreading the answer.

"Well... not in that way." Hart said, and again that annoying little voice inside Tom blossomed into life, hoping and happy and _not supposed to be there._ Tom adamantly removed it, pushing it away to a tiny corner of his mind.

"Why not? Because you're straight, or because you've got your eye on someone else, or because you just aren't interested?" The very small part of Tom's mind could have kicked him for asking, but most of Tom wanted to know, and he didn't really know why.

"Dunno. I've only ever dated girls, so I think I'm straight, but I'm really not interested in a relationship." _The same as you._ The little voice put in, and Tom would have gladly killed the part of his mind that said it, becasue it incited in him another host of wonderings that he really did not want to deal with.

Divination was... interesting. The teacher, a centaur, surprisingly enough, was good, inspiring and helpful, and yet Hart was adamant that he couldn't see anything in his crystal ball. While the centaur was somewhere else, Tom asked Hart if he could have a look and before the boy could refuse he he grabbed the orb and stared deeply into it.

Tom was good at Divination, he knew he was. His basic predictions often came true and he had deciphered some of his 'special' dreams more than once to help him. But there wasn't a single time when he had looked into the crystal ball, not even before Pearl had got a letter saying her parents had been killed in a horrific accident with a whomping willow, and seen something as confusing and worrying as he did now.

Gazing into it, in the almost timeless trance that he could get almost instantly now, he saw a vision. There was something in there, but Hart had been refusing to see it, unwilling to let it take full form. Tom took hold of the unformed vision in his mind and spread it out like one would a map on a table.

It was a battlefield. He was seeing it from Hart's perspective, racing across the grass to a fallen figure, a girl with long brown hair. He stopped a couple of times to help people, and once Tom was shocked to see two people remarkably similar to Azul, both of whom met death quite happily. Then Hart reached the girl, and looked up to see a red-head, obviously a Weasley. Then the vision blurred and changed as a voice echoed through his mind, as a part of the vision.

_"It's only a mudblood."_ Tom, with Hart's eyes, looked up, following the trail of blood up midnight black robes, spattered with blood, to a face...

Which Tom did not get to see, as at that moment the real Hart pulled the crystal ball away. "I didn't say you could look." He said, almost snarling.

"I didn't think you had anything to hide." Tom replied, raising an eyebrow. Hart scowled and put the crystal ball back on the table as the centaur returned.

For the rest of the day, Tom couldn't stop himself thinking about the half-vision he had seen. He wanted to know why there were figures who were visibly similar to people he knew, and why they appeared to be the same age as him, when the vision would have had to be set in the future. He had definitely seen something of Azul in the older Malfoy, and wondered if he could possibly be Azul's future son.

Azul's son? Now that seemed familiar. Hart had muttered something about Azul's son, and grandson, the way that they were always obsessed with their hair, and although both of the Malfoys in the vision had been surrounded by battle and any amount of muck, their hair had seemed well cared for.

That would have made the younger Malfoy in the vision Azul's grandson, in which case why the hell was Hart there, speaking to the boy with the ease of an aquaintance of the same age? He couldn't tell how Hart had been in the vision, but he definitely shouldn't have been able to run that fast if he was old enough to know Azul's grandson.

During lunch he wondered whether he should say something to Hart, ask him about the thing he had seen, but he had a feeling the question would not be well-recieved. There was the matter of the faceless person he had almost seen as well.

As the Hart in the vision had looked up, Tom had felt the stirrings of something powerful, and he felt strange about the figure, as if part of him wanted to see but a greater part of him was all but willing to drag him away from the sight. If he wanted to see who the figure had been, he would have to go against his better judgement.

The afternoon passed in a blur, and all too soon he was on his own again in his quarters. He went and lay down on the couch, breathing in the scent of the heavy cloth. Usually if someone had used a piece of furniture in his rooms then he would have had it washed by the house elves so that his quarters only smelled like him, but for some reason he didn't want to get rid of the scent Hart had left behind on the couch.

He didn't know how long he lay there, but all the thinking during the day must have tired him out because when he next looked up at the wizard clock on the wall he saw that it was about midnight. He had slept for a long time. He listened hard, for the tell tale sounds of people moving beyond his walls, and when all was silent he knew that the world was asleep.

Stretching, he slowly got up and left his quarters. Moving swiftly and silently with less noise than a shadow he passed through the corridors until he reached the place he wanted. Opening the door, he slipped inside and listened carefully to the low, mournful singing that was coming from one of the cubicles further down the room. He stepped forward, up to the sink with the snake on it, and spoke the word which would open the passage.

He knew that the ghost heard him, he heard the singing stop and the splash as she came to look, but he was already gone, back down the tunnel he hadn't set foot in since fourth year. The passage closed behind him and he was alone again. It didn't take him long to navigate the stinking tunnels, the route which was so familiar though he hadn't walked it in a while. When he entered the stone chamber and was met with the beautiful sight of the statues and glittering water he sighed in contentment.

He felt at home, down here. The water was not cold, not hot, but just about body temperature so that it felt like nothing, just floating in it. He had swum in it more than once, letting himself float away from reality, thinking back hundreds of year until he could feel the spirit of Slytherin, just waiting for him. It was calming, a kindred soul that understood how he felt, in a way that no-one else ever had or would. It was a pity the man was years dead, they would have achieved great things together.

He didn't call the basilisk that night. He hardly ever did, it got restless if it was disturbed too much and even though he had complete power over it, an uppity serpant was not something he felt like dealing with. He thought back to his conversation with Slughorn a couple of weeks earlier. It had been playing on his mind for days, briefly forgotten in the light of Hart's arrival, but now it was back.

He already knew that he would go ahead with the Horcruxes. He had one prepared in his bedroom, a diary which had very special spells on it, placed only a couple of days after his talk with Slughorn, all ready for when he found a suitable sacrifice. The first tear would be the most painful, he knew, and there was a very good possibility he would die from the attempt, his seventeen year old body too weak to take it.

It would have been easier with another person's help, of course, but hew knew he couldnt tell anyone about his plans. Nobody else could know, not even his closest friends. Slughorn might have suspected something, but he would probably have forgotten it by now. It was at times like this when he _really_ wished Slytherin was alive, to help him.

He lay back on the cool, cold floor, listening to the slow drip, drip, drip of the water around him, looked up at the carved ceiling with the intricate snake design. He had lots of things to think about, concerning school, his carefully made plans, his associates and the enigma of Hart Peake.

Thinking about things, especially hard, confusing and complicate things, was a tiring business, and it wasn't long before he felt himself slipping iff into sleep. _Why not?_ He asked himself. _No-one will miss you until breakfast, and you won't sleep in that long anyway. Not on a cold hard floor like this._

Consenting to his bodies demands, he let himself drift away, his thoughts fanning out in his mind, until blackness swallowed up his vision and he knew no more.

Yay, chapter 2 is up! How did you like it? Thankyou for all your lovely reviews, its people like you who keep me writing you know. Now then, the next chapter might be a while, because I have mocks and coursework to do and until my hectic life calms down a bit I won't have another chapter for you. I plan to write more again in the easter holidays so check back around then and you might be lucky! p.s I got bored of plot building so decided to spice things up a bit. Bring on the naughty dreams!


	4. Dreams and Revelations

**Author:** Silverhair Theory 

**Rating: **M

**Disclaimer: **I nothing. JKRowling owns everything. If you prosecute me all you're likely to get is my sweet stash and my teddy bear, so I wouldn't advise it.

**THE GIFT OF A SECOND CHANCE**

_Chapter 3: Dreams and Revelations_

When Tom woke up to find himself stiff and painful from sleeping on a hard floor, he wasn't too surprised. After all, he had slept down in the Chamber before, and all it would take was one cup of strong black coffee and he would be fine. He got up and stretched before making his way back out, thorugh the tunnel and up into the girls bathroom. He sneaked out, the same way he had come in, and the ghost girl didn't notice him.

He got to breakfast late, Hart, Azul and the others were already there, eating. He went and sat down in the place which was almost automatically reserved for him in the very centre of the crowd. They ate quickly and then set off to lessons.

The day passed fairly quickly for Tom, lessons brushing past, nothing really staying in his mind. Even Azul remarked at lunch about how distant he seemed today, but Tom didn't tell him why. He was thinking about the Horcruxes, and who the sacrifice could be. It had to be a human, that much was certain, but he couldn't think of who he could actually get. He didn't want to use a muggle, although they were the easiest as the muggle police were worse than incompetant when trying to locate missing persons.

No, it would have to be a wizard, because only the blood of a wizard would be enough to tear his soul the first time. In fact he wanted to use a wizard every time, but that might not be possible. A muggle would do, for the others, but for the first cut he needed a wizard. What he needed was some event, some place in which people were expected to die, then he could just pick anyone attending and use them.

But what event could possibly happen in which people were expected to die? There was nothing coming up, no dangerous contest, no attack on dangerous creatures, so if he wanted to have danger he would have to engineer it himself... The only time when he could realistically strike was at the Winter Dance. But what about all of his associates? He didn't really want to ruin their nights, they would moan at him for weeks.

Unless, of couse, he warned them about it beforehand. They knew well enough that when he had one of his schemes running that it was unwise to get in the way of them, and he could probably trust them enough to keep themselves and their dates out of trouble. He hoped they could, because he wasn't going to go round looking after them.

But what about Hart? True, the boy had been almost seamlessly accepted into the group, as if he belonged, but there was still that unknown factor about him, and Tom didn't want to trigger that by telling him to keep himself and his companion, whoever that turned out to be, away from his plans.

Then a rather interesting idea struck Tom. Why not use Hart as the assistant? He would have to be careful, that the boy didn't know what he was doing, or else he might refuse and leave Tom with the incantation half completed, in unimaginable pain as his soul was torn but not seperated. If he used Hart as a helper then he could get the spell over much faster, be back to the castle before anyone realised the commotion was him.

Now he only had to decide how to cause a deadly panic. He toyed with the idea of loosing one of the creatures from the forbidden forest onto the grounds, but decided against it as it was too easily discovered, he might be blamed. He needed something that could be blamed on anybody, or even better on the person who fell foul of it, so that everyone would think that whatever happened had been the victim's fault. That way nobody would think to blame him.

Not that he would be blamed anyway. Of course noone would blame him, he was the Head Boy, top of all the classes and liked, or at least tolerated, by most of the school. There were a couple of Gryffindors who had serious problems with him of course, like those damnable weasleys, but apart from that... noone.

Even the teachers seemed happy with him, everyone except Dumbledore. The old man was paranoid, Tom was sure of it, even though his suspicions were likely correct, probably even more dangerous. Tom held a kind of grudging respect for the old man, but knew only too well of the way he meddled in the affairs of students, trying to win them over with favoritism and escaping punishments. And Dumbledore never had liked the Slytherins, preferring the Gryffs, those proud, loyal, brave, _idiotic_ Gryffindors who got away with more than the rest of the school put together, and any number of times more than what the Slytherins were allowed on their short leash.

None of the Slytherins really liked Dumbledore for the way he treated them, much preferring Headmaster Dippet, because Dippet could be relied on to rely on others, and that made him easy to manipulate and control. And in that respect, the stereotypical image of the Slytherin was right. Slytherins, especially Tom, liked control.

For the whole day Tom plotted and schemed until, by dinnertime, he had an almost perfect plan of what he was going to do on the night of the dance. The plan was this.

Assuming Hart kept his single status, which Tom expected him to do, and even if he did, they would stay at the dance until the general aura of the night had dissipated and the couples were retreating outside where Tom knew there would be lavish decorations and an atmosphere of peace, serentiy and romance. He would post Hart to make sure that all the Slytherins got away safely, then Hart would signal to Tom, who would release the spider-like creatures from the crates outside the gamekeepers hut.

The spiders, or acromantula, as they were specifically called, which the fifth years had been studying for a couple of weeks now, were vicious, scary and violent. The crates they were kept in were fairly flimsy and it was only through delicate strength charms that the creatures were kept in there. Tom knew that if an acromantula got out then it would be blamed on the gamekeeper or his assistant, for not locking the crates properly. He personally hoped it was blamed on the gamekeeper's assistant, Hagrid, the bumbling, idiotic Gryffindor that he had got expelled around the time he had learnt about the chamber of secrets.

Once the acromantula had casued a suitable amount of panic Tom would corner one of the students and kill them. He would do it quietly, while Hart and the others were helping everyone else up to the castle. Then he would call Hart over and tell him that the acromantula had killed the student, and that he needed help to try and perform a spell which might bring them back, and that it needed to be done quickly.

Both ressurection spells and the Horcrux spell took a while to cast, so it wouldn't seem too suspicious. When the spell was complete, Tom would say sadly that it hadn't worked, and then they could go back to the castle with the last few people and noone would be any the wiser.

There was only one problem, and that was Hart. For starters, the boy was clever, competant enough in class to know things that none of the rest of them could, especially in Defence against the Dark Arts. In that class he could beat everyone, but for some reason he refused to pair with Tom. He wouldn't say why, but went with somebody else, usually Azul who was more than happy to oblige. Tom was a little annoyed by this as he knew Hart was the only one in the class who might be a match for him. Officially he was still top of the class, because Hart hadn't taken any exams with them yet, but he knew that if they ever did duel there would be a great interest from the student body. It had taken less than a day for the school to notice the new addition to his associates, and those who were in his DADA class had obviously spread the news about how good the other boy was.

The other problem with the boy was the fact that he might bring a date. Tom knew, logically, that there was little chance of him meeting someone in four days, but if it did happen and Hart felt responsible for his date then Tom might have a problem getting him away. If only there was some way of arranging it so that there was no way Hart would bring a date...

As the day came to a close and everybody started drifting back to their rooms from the Slytherin common room, Tom was surprised to see Hart and Azul having a heated conversation by the fireplace. They were talking quietly, too quietly to hear, but Tom could tell by the way Hart's eyes were blazing that he was het up. Azul seemed calm and composed to the casual; eye, but Tom, who knew him well, could see that the icy demeanour was just the boy's way of displaying his anger and fury. Truly, he seemed more angry than Hart.

Tom nonchalently walked over and sat down at a table near them, taking a book from one of the piles and opening it. He stared at the words, not reading them, concentrating on listening to the conversation nearby.

Harry was seriously annoyed with Azul. He had been having this conversation for about half an hour now and he was no closer to finding out what he wanted.

"But what is he?" He asked, for about the fifty-millionth time. "He must have some preference?"  
"I don't _know_." Azul said haughtily. "Look, I've tried explaining this to you, I can't think of any other way of explaining it. He isn't either, he just doesn't _do_ that sort of thing. At all. Ever."

Harry sighed, exasperated. He had been wondereing about the conversation he had had with Tom the previous day about dates for the dance, and it had struck him that Tom might be gay. It was a novel idea but Harry had gathered, from what Azul had been telling him, that really there was no way to tell, because Tom Riddle had never dated _anyone_ in his entire life.

Azul proffessed that it was because his mind was on other things, but for some reason that just didn't cut it with Harry, There was something about that explanation which just didn't work when you applied it to Tom, even though there certainly were other things he was obviously thinking about. He had to have been, after all, he was the future dark lord.

Tom had seemed especially distant today, more distant than Azul said he'd ever seen him, any Harry knew he wanted to know what was going on in the other boy's mind, kept wondering whether it was something to do with the Horcruxes.

He looked up, and spotted Tom sitting at a desk near them, close enough to hear what they were saying. He suddenly realised that the other boy had probably heard a decent part of the conversation, and realising this he jumped up, faking a yawn.

"Well, I'm tired out. Arguing is exhausting, especially when it's pointless. Goodnight Azul." He walked away from Azul and as he passed the table where Tom was sitting said "Goodnight Tom." He stifled a chuckle when the boy jumped, obviously concentrating on either the book or their conversation to realise that Harry was near him.

When he went into the dormitory he found Jerry, Rupert and Vlad already asleep. As Harry got ready for bed he let his thoughts rest on Vladimir. Really, Harry wondered who he was. He didn't have any decendants that he knew of, but seemed fairly close friends to Tom. Harry wondered what would happen to him in the fifty years that would come to pass.

He got into bed and drew the curtains around him, snuggling down under the covers against the cool air in the dungeons. He hadn't dreamt the previous night, and absently wondered whether that was a good thing or a bad thing. Sometimes he thought he didn't want to dream again, becasue he hadn't liked where the last one had been leading for a few moments. But there was also something about the dreams that was different, special, and Harry knew his subconsious wanted more. Sighing, he wondered whether Tom ever dreamt of him, or even at all.

_"Harry...Harry..." Somebody was calling his name, and he shifted slightly. There was a hand on his arm, shaking him softly, then the hand moved to his cheek and started stroking it gently, almost lovingly. Harry tried to think logiaclly about who it might be._

_Not Ron, not Hermione, not Sirius, not Ginny, they were all dead. So was everybody else who touched him caringly, everyone was dead and gone..._

_"Oh Harry, don't cry..." The voice said, and Harry felt tears being wiped away by a warm hand, tears which he hadn't even realised were there._

_There was the sound of breathing above him, and it moved closer until it was fanning over his face. Harry couldn't seem to muster the strength to open his eyes, couldn't do anything as the warm air furled around him like a gentle caress._

_"Who's there?" He asked. "Who are you?"_

_"Why Harry," The voice said, light, playful, almost mocking. "Don't you remember? It's me. Tom."_

_Harry's eyes flew open and it was indeed Tom, and they were in a weird position. Harry was lying on something cold and hard but he could hardly feel it. Tom was straddling him, his legs either side of Harry's, his arms on either side of Harry's head. Harry looked into the pure green orbs that were staring just as intently at him, and felt a small shiver run down his spine._

_"Tom? Why...why are we..." He could hardly formulate the words, it was so hard to move, to care about anything._

_"Like this?" Tom laughed softly, quiet and calming and Harry wondered again how he could dream Tom's laugh. "We're like this because this is your mind. This is all concocted by you, yourself. So you tell me, why are we like this?"_

_They stared into each others eyes, and Harry was very aware of the breath playing around his face, of Tom's lips being just a couple of inches away, so close that Harry would only have to move his head a tiny bit to kiss the other boy._

_Tom seemed to read his mind and he laughed again. "Go on then, Harry. Kiss me."_

_The words were like fire in his head. Before he could stop himself he had moved forward that vital inch or so and was pressing his lips against the other boy's. Tom's lips were soft and Harry could feel him smiling into Harry's mouth. Then Tom was kissing back, running his tongue along Harry's lips in a gentle caress which made Harry gasp and open his mouth, letting Tom's tongue enter. Harry tentatively pushed forward with his own tongue, hesistant and unsure. He felt rather than heard the chuckle from Tom, and the tongue in his mouth gently caressed his own, Harry just letting Tom show him what to do and trying to copy it. Tom licked the roof of Harry's mouth and it made Harry shiver. Harry put his arms up around Tom's neck and pulled him closer and heard Tom's elbows hit the ground either side of his head as he bent down._

_Tom broke the kiss, pulling back and smiling at Harry. Harry looked at him through foggy eyes and with foggy thoughts, and then logic kicked in and his eyes widened with shock._

_"What...what did I just do!" He said, putting a hand to his head, and he heard Tom chuckle again. _

_"You kissed me. Rather well, actually." Tom smirked at him as Harry's face wemt through several emotions, shock, embarrassment and turning to anger. "Now Harry, I'm sure you reaslise that your mind is the one inventing all of this, that this is _your _doing." Tom was smirking down at him, and Harry's blood raged at the sight of the other boy's expression._

_"If you're in my mind...then I can make you go away...like this!" Harry said, and focused on waking up._

With a start the dream faded and Harry was left lying on his back, staring up at the ceiling of his four-poster and wondering what in Merlin's name had just happned.

_What the _hell_ did I just do? Was I dreaming about _kissing_ Tom Riddle? _Harry asked himself. He put a finger to his lips and could still feel the other boy's mouth on his. _What's wrong with me! I can't have dreamt that! It's sick and wrong and I like _girls_! I went out with Cho and Ginny and I liked them, didnt ?_

It was only after Harry had lain there for a few minutes that he realised he was waiting for someone to answer him.

Tom woke up the next morning and lay in his bed, enjoying the warm, comforting feeling of not having anywhere to go. He had a free lesson until ten and it was currently about nine o'clock. He would probably stay in bed, then lesiurely pull himself up and order breakfast from the house elves, then maybe take a look in his library to see if there were any interesting books he felt like reading.

He stretched out, spreading his arms and legs across his bed, and they hit something.

Something warm and heavy.

Something which _groaned._

Ah. So it had been one of _those_ nights.

Tom cracked an eye open and looked across his bed to see who he had had the misfortune to have slept with. Even as he did so he was running through the possibilities in his mind.

It was most probably a Slytherin, since he couldn't have gone to one of the other common rooms and he definitely remembered the Slytherin common room the previous night. He didn't feel particularly sore, so it was also probably a girl, unless it was a boy and he'd gone top, which was equally likely.

He saw who the person was, and one eyebrow raised slightly. Well, it wasn't a Slytherin. Officially. It was in fact the Gryff who hung around with the Weasley brothers. Tom struggled to remember the boy's name. Zibini? Zabini? Lufi Zabini? Yeah, that sounded about right. So, Lufi Zabini.

A boy then, which meant that he, Tom, had gone top and the boy in front of his would be feeling some pain when he woke up. Tom sighed and sat up, the cool morning air playing across his torso. He swung his legs out of the bed and placed them on the cold, cold floor.

Yes, he was naked, which meant that they had almost certainly gone all the way. Tom sighed again and pulled a hand through his hair. These night didn't happen often, in fact they'd only ever happened twice before, once with some Ravenclaw girl and the other time with Vlad. Both had been last year and Tom had been hoping he wouldn't ever wake up like this again. He'd had to put a strong memory charm on the girl and had adapted Vlad into the group, making sure that Tom was safe from jealous ex-lovers. The girl didn't remember a thing and Vlad had understood that Tom was not into relationships. They had a kind of comfortable truce now.

But what to do about Zabini? Tom made himself use the boy's last name as a protection against feeling. Tom pulled his wand from the pocket of his robes, which were lying crumpled on a chair, and flicked a charm at Zabini which would keep him asleep. Then he dressed quickly and transfigured his cover into a set of school robes for Zabini. Using his wand, he levitated the sleeping boy and took him outside, out of his quarters, and put him down the corridor, far enough away from the door to prevent suspicion. Then he flicked his wand again and removed the sleep charm, before going back inside.

Tom went and sat down on his bed, thinking. Both times when this had happened before, it had happened for a reason. The first time, with Vlad, he had been being sought after by Azul, and the blonde had practically molested him in the library. Tom had been almost in a panic, and when he had come across Vlad drinking wine by the fire in the common room he had asked for a goblet and recieved some of the heady, rich liquid. Things progressed from there, and the next thing Tom remembered was waking up with the other boy in bed with him and a horrible sinking feeling as he realised what it meant.

He had let someone in. He had willingly broken down his emotional walls and let somebody get close enough to hurt him. For a couple of days he had alienated Vlad before realising that avoiding him was going to make the other boy unpleasant to work with, and who knew when he might need to work with the other boy. So he had approached, and invited Vlad to sit with them at dinner. One thing followed another.

With the girl, it had been different. It had been the monthly Slytherin club night, when all the sixth and seventh years went clubbing and brought their mates from other houses. Tom had been gotten extremely drunk by Azul in an attempt to lure him to bed, but Tom had once again resisted and picked up the first person he bumped into, which had happened to be a seventh year girl from Ravenclaw, who was also Head Girl. He had woken up the next morning in her arms and, disgusted with himself once again, memory charmed her before leaving the Head Girl quarters and running back to his own dormitories in a state of shock and horror that he had once again let somebody close enough to hurt him.

Now was no different. If he was correct, Zabini would have no more of a memory of the previous night than she did. Hopefully he would leave and not put together the fact that he had woken up sore with the fact that he was only twenty metres away from the Head Boy's quarters.

He wondered what time it was and checked the clock on the wall. It was half past nine, plenty of time for some breakfast before he headed off to Herbology with Hart.

For some reason, when he thought of Hart his heart sank and he felt a sensation in the pit of his stomach which he identified as guilt. It was connected with his position when waking up and for a second he wondered why he was feeling guilty. He was allowed to make mistakes. Everyone did. And why should Hart have anything to do with his sex life either?

Tom brushed the thought away and called one of the house elves to order breakfast. Soon he was tucking into toast and coffee, purposefully not thinking about either Hart or Zabini.

When he had finished breakfast he pulled his books into his bag and left the Head Boy quarters, heading for Herbology. When he was walking across the grounds he saw Hart in front of him and immediately all the feelings of guilt came back. Tom pushed them away forcefully but he couldn't remove all of them. He purposefully kept walking and made himself fall into step with Hart, like it was a normal day.

Harry felt Tom fall into step beside him, and had to fight extremely hard not to blush. He had hardly been able to get up this morning when he had realised he was going to see Tom in the first lesson, but he was here now and he seemed to have been mostly sucessful with the blush. Honestly, here he was like some red-faced school girl over his arch enemy! Or what would become his arch enemy...

All through the lesson there was something tense between them. They talked to each other normally and replied when Azul came over to talk to them, but there was a tension in the air that Harry knew was not just radiating off of him. Tom was also tense when close to him, and Harry couldn't understand why.

After the lesson Tom put a hand on Harry's arm to make him stay behind. Harry turned back and waited while the other students streamed past him.

"Hart." Tom said. "Have you decided who you're taking to the winter dance yet?" Wh_y is he asking?_ Harry wondered. Does he want to ask me? Oh Merlin, what do I say if he does?

"No, I haven't" He answered.

"Ah, good. I need your help with something that evening." _Oh. Not an invitation then._ Harry wondered vaguely why his heart was sinking as if it had just suffered a great disappointment. "It's a sort of joke, a prank, if you like. I made a bet with sombody and I need to complete it. I need you to be my lookout."

"Why me?" Harry asked, slowly.

"Because the others all have dates." Tom said, as if it was obvious.

"Oh. Right." Harry said.

"Right. Meet me outside the Great Hall at a quarter to midnight then, on friday."

"Got it." Harry said, and watched as Tom walked off to their next lesson. _Did he just ask me on a... date? No, he couldn't have done._

Harry watched Tom as he left the room, unconsiously running his eyes over the other boy's body. The straight black hair that fell in a way which at first glance looked like a mess but at second glance was in fact perfect in every way, with not a single strand out of place. The edge of Tom's torso just visible under his robes, then flowing down to the floor where it billowed slightly.

Harry mentally sighed. _No, he couldn't have done._

Tom walke away from Hart, running through their conversation in his mind. There was something strange about it and he wasn't quite sure what. He thought the words over again, then tried to imagine himself being Hart and hearing them. Then it hit him what had been strange.

It might have sounded like Tom was asking Hart to the dance. Or at least on some sort of midnight meeting, which on the night of the dance would have been taken by anyone to be the offer of a date. Tom mentally slapped himself and hoped that Hart had enough sense to realise he never would have offered such a thing.

However, though part of him was adamant that he wanted Hart to forget about it, another, barely identifyable part was apparently hoping that the other boy wouldn't. Tom almost stopped in his tracks as he realised this, but forced himself to keep walking. Why on earth did part of him want to go on a date with Hart? This...couldn't be normal. For him, at the very least.

He pondered to himself during Potions. Slughorn was doing a fairly complex potion, but Tom had brewed it for a plan when he had been in third year, so he really wasn't bothered. His thoughts were focused on the boy a couple of seats on the left of him, whose balck head was bent close to Azul's blond one. They seemed to be comparing notes or ideas or something and Tom noticed Hart's eyes flick up to his and away again before he realised he was staring.

He quickly moved his eyes away from Hart and looked down at the piece of paper in front of him. It was boring, trivial stuff and he wouldn't need it for his N.E.W.Ts revision, so he turned it over and wrote a title at the top of the page. _Why Hart Peake is Attractive _it said, and Tom proceeded to write down a list of everything about the boy that was attractive.

He started with the personality and worked his way through to physical appearance. When he had finished listing everything he knew about the boy, he reagrded his list, frowning slightly. There was nothing spectacular on it, no reason why his traitorous mind should want to date Hart. And yet he did. Really, it was most strange.

He thought about it during lunch too, and was annoyed when he discovered it was as much of a puzzle as Hart himself. Tom resigned himself to the fact of the enigma, just as he had with the questions about Hart, and finished lunch with what he supposed must have been a vaguely depressed look, because Pearl Goyle asked him if he was alright.

After lunch they had the afternoon off because it was the night of his astronomy lesson and now that they were in seventh year, they were expected to spend most of the night up there. They were encouraged to spend as much of the afternoon sleeping as possible because they wouldn't get much rest after the lesson before breakfast. Tom liked astronomy lessons, because he had always found the night sky beautiful.

Tom went up to his quarters and kicked off his shoes, not bothering to take his robes off before lying down on the bed and putting his mind into the blank void-like state that sent him almost immediately to sleep.

_Harry was dreaming again. He knew it was a dream by the way the hands on his shoulders felt, the not-quite-there feel that made everything unreal and he knew that if he were to pinch himself, he would not feel it._

_He knew the body above him, knew whose hands were resting on his shoudler and whose legs were draped over his. He knew whose eyes he would meet if he opened his own and he knew what the person had come to do._

_"Tom." He said, and the person above him chuckled in the way he knew so well._

_"Yes. It's me. I'm here." He said it in a way which made it sound comforting, as a mother might say to comfort a lost child, and Harry could feel his traitorous body responding to the words, trying to get closer to the other body, to nestle in against the warmth that it provided. Tom seemed to know what Harry's body wanted to do, and laughed again. "Can't even control yourself, can you Harry. Anyone offers you the slightest promise of warmth, of love, or even the _idea_ of love and you're falling over yourself to reach them. Pathetic."  
_

_The word hung like a curse in the air and Harry shivered. Tom laughed again, and Harry cursed his body for reacting to the laugh, cursed the way he could not stop a tiny gutteral sound escaping from his throat._

_"Open your eyes, Harry. I want to see green looking back at me." Harry grudgingly opened his eyes, and sure enough Tom was staring down at him, his dark bangs falling around his face and a little over one eye. Harry gulped and Tom laughed._

_"Stop laughing dammit!" Harry exclaimed. Tom smiled, a predatory gleam in his eye, and leant down until his mouth was close to Harry's ear. Harry felt a few strands of black silk brush his ear, and he shivered. Tom's chuckle, so close and so low, almost animal, made sparks trickle like a waterfall down his spine._

_"Make me." Tom growled, and Harry had one glimpse of the handsome, smirking smile before he had pressed his lips to Tom's, unable to stop himself, and he could feel the soft velvet of the other boy's lips on his own._

_Tom's tongue flickered out like a snake and licked Harry's lips. Harry opened his mouth and met Tom's tongue with his own, vaguely aware that he was making little gutteral cries like the one before every time Tom licked the roof of the cave of his mouth, or brushed his teeth along the backs of his gums._

_A sharp pain, but interspersed with the pleasure, and Tom was biting down, had his white teeth on Harry's lip and Harry heard himself whimper at the combined emotions. Tom released him and allowed just enough time for Harry to catch his breath before capturing his mouth again, dancing with Harry's tongue and making Harry feel inadequate with the skill and tenderness that Tom kissed._

_Then the mouth left his own, and Tom was next to his ear, breathing slowly, seductively into the shell of Harry's ear and making him shiver. Tom flicked his tongue over the skin and then bent his head a little more to the space just below the ear and placed a series of feather light kisses on the hollow there, like a butterflies touch but sending shocks of electricity though Harry every time they touched._

_Slowly Tom moved his mouth down, across Harry's skin, which erupted into gooseflesh under his touch. Tom trailed faint but tantalizing kisses down Harry's neck, to the hollow at the base of his throat, and nipped slightly at the skin, making Harry yelp slightly. The bites continued and morphed into teasing licks, and Harry had to hold back a moan._

_"T...Tom..." He stuttered, his voice husky and lower pitched than normal. The other boy's ministrations increased in fervour until Harry was gripping the stone floor underneath him so hard that it hurt, and his breath was shallow and fast, panting. "Please...stop..." He said, and the light touch stopped._

_He looked down and saw Tom looking at him in puzzlement. The other boy's face was tinged pink and he was breathing heavily as well. "What's wrong, kitten?" Tom's voice was, if possible even huskier than Harry's had been and Harry had to push away the rush as his body responded to the unpoken longing in the voice._

_"I...I don't...I don't want this." Harry said, and for a second disappointment flashed across Tom's face, before he smiled in a way which, had Harry been standing, would have sent him to the floor as his legs turned to jelly._

_"Are you _sure_ you don't want this?" Tom said. He raised one slender hand and stroked Harry's hair with it, making little crooning sounds under his breath. Harry's body leaned in to the touch and Tom laughed. "It certainly seems your body does, even if your better judgement hates it." He cupped Harry's face with the same hand and bent down to give Harry a chaste kiss which he couldn't help but try to deepen immediately. Tom pulled away and laughed again at the denied look on Harry's face. He trailed his hand down Harry's face, down the side of his neck, and Harry shivered under his touch. Tom bent his head and kissed Harry deeply, making him gasp into the other boy's mouth. Harry could feel Tom's smirk through the kiss and didn't notice until it was too late that the hand Tom had been trailing down his neck had seized the neck of his robes and ripped them open._

_Harry broke the kiss and gasped at the sudden coolness. His robes had been torn apart at the front and his naked chest was now bare for Tom's roving eyes. The boy laughed at Harry's fluster and trailed one hand butterfly-style across Harry's collarbone, while the other reached up to the collar of his own robes and unfastened them._

_Harry bit back a moan as the teasing touch on his collarbone moved down to his breastbone and towards his belly-button, making shivers of hot and cold erupt all over his body. It was torturously pleasureable and Harry wished with all his might that he could have the use of his arms instead of being unable to do anything except clutch the flagstones._

_Tom's ghosting touch moved again and Harry couldn't stop the moan of pleasure as it flickered over one already hard nipple, stroking it and making it burn. Tom bent his head but instead of going to Harry's mouth he went to his chest and warm trails of fire were dancing across Harry's chest before centreing on the other nipple, licking and sucking._

_Harry's mind was blank with the pleasure and yet at the same time it was screaming out at him to focus, telling him to push Tom away, to tell him to stop, to _make_ him stop..._

No_!" Harry said, forcing the word out against a significant part of his own better judgement. The hands paused and Harry's mind screamed at him to put them back, to let the hands continue where they wanted. "No...I don't _want _this!" Harry said, knowing only too well that he was trying to convince himself far more than Tom._

_"You don't?" Tom said. He moved his hand, trailing it down Harry's stomach and the tortuously light movement made it incredibly hard for Harry to think. "Are you...sure?" Tom put his mouth right next to Harry's ear and breathed slowly into it before licking the shell and making Harry shudder._

_The hand ghosting along his flesh passed over his crotch and even the slight touch was enough to make Harry hard. His breath hissed out of him and his whole body went tense. Tom laughed, quiet and soft into Harry's ear. The hand rubbed over the patch again, then lost all traces of innocence and slipped in to Harry's trousers, taking hold of his shaft._

_Harry couldn't stop the little cry that came from his mouth, and it seemed to excite Tom. Slowly, languidly, he moved his hand on Harry, up and down, calmly and methodically at first but speeding up until it Tom's breaths were harsh in his ear and Harry knew he was moaning in pleasure._

_"You know..." Tom said, his voice huskier than Harry thought possible, capturing green eyes with green eyes. Harry could see every detail of the orbs, every fleck of mottled green in the thin ring of lust-clouded emerald surrounding the pupils that were large with desire. "You know...I think you _do_ want this." _

_The hand hadn't slowed, and Harry's mind exploded into white as he came onto Tom. His breathing was laboured as Tom slipped his hand out of Harry's trousers, and brought the hand up for Harry to see. It was dripping cum, and Tom put it to his mouth and licked it all away, never breaking Harry's gaze and knowing that Harry was watching him the whole time._

_Tom bent close to Harry and kissed him again, deep and hard and passionate, and Harry could taste what he knew to be himself in Tom's mouth, could taste it on the tongue that fondled his and numbed his mind to anything else. Tom broke the kiss, and stared into Harry's eyes. They were so close that Harry felt Tom open his mouth when he spoke._

_"You see? You _do_ want this."_

Tom woke with a start and sat up in his bed, breathing hard. He could feel the sweat running off him in waves and his recently-transfigured covers were soaked. He put a hand to his head and pushed his damp hair out of his eyes, trying not to think about his dream.

_Hot, slick bodies moving around him, touching him, reaching inside his mind and his body and making him feel dirty, violated, and the whole time Hart's face, there in front of him laughing, laughing at him and kissing him mockingly, all the time and his voice in Tom's ear whispering his name..._

"No!" Tom said, startling the house elf which had been tidying one of the corners of the room. Tom turned to it and stared at it, frozen in its fear of him. "I. Do. Not. Care." He said, very firmly and slowly, speaking to the house elf and making it quiver pathetically in terror. "I don't like him, I don't and I never will. Do you understand? Do you understand me!" He screamed at the elf, and it nodded frantically, putting its hands over its over-long ears and whimpering as he yelled at it.

"Get out!" He yelled and it shrieked before high-tailing it out of his room, its little brush flying through the air after it. Tom thumped the wall next to his bed in frustration and was rewarded with a chip of stone embedded in his hand. Wincing, he ripped the sliver out and chucked it away, putting the cut to his mouth and licking away the few drops of blood which came to the surface.

That, however, bought back yet another memory of the dream and Tom screwed up his eyes in frustration and another feeling which he refused to name. He fisted his hands in his hair, not caring about the trickle of blood that he left in his black locks.

"He would never do that. he would never do that. He would never hurt me. He would never do that. I do. Not. Like him. He would never do that. I don't care. He would never, never do that!"

He spent a long time like that, reciting the same words again and again, like a mantra, until the moisture on his skin cooled in the cold evening air and became ice against him, and shivers trickled down his spine.

_Beep beep. Beep beep._ The alarm spell went off next to him, the little floating globe flashing and telling him that it was time to go to astronomy. With Hart. Hart would be in astronomy, he would be there and he would want to know what was wrong, want to know why Tom couldn't look at him, why every time he spoke Tom winced.

But he had to go. It would be even worse if he didn't because then he'd have everyone on his back, not just Hart. Even though Hart would be the worst. He vaguely wondered why, as he mindlessly got up and started sifting through his robes, mechanically trying to find something to wear.

When he had dressed he looked around the apartment again, dark and cold and unwelcoming as he himself was, and the _lonliness_ of the place made him shiver. He allowed himself to do so, allowed hiumself to shiver and to think morbid thoughts because he understood that everyone had to have morbid moments or their emotions went haywire, and much as he hated showing his emotions, he had to grudgingly admit that they did exist.

He let the thoughts take hold of him for a few seconds then, judging that they had had enough time, pushed them away back to their secretive little corner and left his quarters.

It didn't take long to reach the astronomy tower. Most of the class was already there, yawning and stretching. He went over to where Azul and co. were standing and together they waited for the teacher.

Although Tom was looking out of the window, admiring the view and the way the moonlight shimmered off the surface of the lake far, far below, he knew instantly when Hart entered the room. It was like he had a proximity spell on the other boy, and he found himself watching Hart's progression over to their little group, subconsiously hiding his interest at the same time.

_Come on, admit it. You_ like_ him _

His subconsious voice was getting on his nerves. He was not attracted to Hart. He wasn't. It was absurd, he was Tom Riddle, he didn't _have_ crushes. Crushes were for silly simpering schoolgirls like Vivian Parkinson and all-loving people like Azul. He, Tom, was cold, calculated, and above such petty affections.

_Yeah, cold, like your depressing room. Come on, you don't want to be like that, do you? You like him, just admit it and save yourself the trouble of denial. _

Seriously, Tom was tiring of the silly voice in his head. He was sure other people couldn't have such vocal and decisive consiences, not like his at any rate. They'd all go mad. It was only through the building of an emotional wall around himself that Tom had kept his sanity, and sometimes he wasn't even sure he had that.

Thankfully, he was saved from any more internal debate when the teacher entered. Professor Oria was ancient, wizened and beautiful as a ninety year old witch got. There were rumours that she had been a model when she was younger but Tom had always thought she was more of the mysterious fortune teller type, and her fine features and gracefully flowing white hair lent itself so well to floating around mystically.

She was also an extremely gifted astronomer and knew the location of stars without having to look up at the sky. Tom had long ago decided that if he was ever in need of a star-reading he would go to someone like her, only the best.

She seemed about as otherworldly tonight as she ever did, dressed in an elegant swirling robe of deep purple, almost black, which set off her loose silver hair and the purple tint in her milky eyes.

Yes, Professor Oria was blind, but despite that she was still better at astronomy than anyone else Tom had ever known and even though he knew for certain that she couldn't see the stars, she always looked straight at them. Noone ever asked her about her mysterious ability to sense where the stars were and it only elevated her higher in status among the students because of her unknown ability.

"Greetings, dearest children. Tonight, we will be observing Venus and its passage through the orbit of Mars, where they will pass so close to each other that for a few hours they will seem as one star. During this time we will be taking note of the location of the other planets and also the relation of the stars to the crossover and what conclusions about the future we can draw from this."

Professor Oria's voice always sounded to Tom like flowing milk, reminding him of her eyes, and he knew that it had a similar effect on most people as everyone set about aligning their telescopes. According to his lunar calendar the crossover was not due to start for about an hour and until that time they were meant to prepare their equiptment and notes for the main event. They all had to get into partners, one to look at the stars and the other to write down what they said.

Not surprisingly, he got paired with Hart. Azul went with Vlad and Rupert with Jerry. They all chose telescopes away from the rest of the class, in the shadows at the back of the tower room, and there was no need to talk while they aligned the telescopes and set out the parchment onm the desks around them.

Unfortunately, the work didn't last very long and before he knew it Tom was left to talk to Hart as everybody else drifted off into a doze. Tom, however, could not relax. Just knowing he was inches away from the face that had haunted his dreams, had laughed at him in his pain and taken pleasure from it, was almost too much. He knew he was tense, knew that Hart had probably noticed it, but couldn't stop himself from either avoiding Hart's glace altogether or only looking at the other boy quickly before turning away.

Surprisingly though, he didn't seem to be the only onee with the problem. Hart, also, seemed to be unwilling to look at him, keeping his eyes firmly staring ahead. Once or twice their eyes met as they both took surrepticious glances but ended up staring forward again almost immediately. Tom couldn't work out why Hart was acting strange. He sincerely doubted that Hart had had the same sort of dream as he had, indeed he would have been extremely worried and unnerved if he had.

It was just that Hart wasn't acting exactly the same way as he was. Whereas he was wincing when he caught Hart's eye as the contact reminded him of another unpleasant recollection, Hart's reaction was vastly different, even, if Tom looked carefully, a blush? Now that was interesting. Why would Hart be blushing?

It reminded him of something though. A long while ago he remembered someone else blushing when they were around him, although it had been a lot more violent than Hart's light colour. He cast his mind around for the memory, and it caught. Suddenly he remembered, and it made him shudder inside.

It had been the summer of fourth year when he had met her. He had been at a night club somewhere in london with Azul, on a "Babewatch" as the other boy had put it. It had been a muggle establishment and that was why Azul liked it, he needed no connection to these people and had none either. He often dragged Tom on these nights and when Azul left with whatever girl (or guy) he'd picked up, Tom would leave the club and resignedly go abck to the orphanage. Azul was always bugging him to find someone on one of these nights, and however many times Tom tried to explain his theory of not letting anyone get close enough to hurt him, Azul never gave up.

It was about the sixth time he'd been one one of these nights with Azul when they both discovered a a large group of girls in one of their regular haunts. They were all very pretty, very flirtatious and very blonde. They were also french. Ever since that fateful night Tom had never trusted anything french. Most of the girls had been perefectly charming, but Tom just wasn't interested and they were all more intereested in Azul anyway.

Well, not all. There was one girl who didn't fawn all over Azul like the others. Her hair was a dirty blonde, obviously dyed, and Tom could see the roots of her dark hair underneath. Her eyes were blue as the summer sky, too blue in fact, and it didn't take him long to work out that they weren't her natural colour. That puzzled him for a long time, becasue the only thing he could think of that would chage a person's eye colour was the _trans oculo_ spell, and he was sure the girls were muggles.

He struck up a conversation with the girl, trying to discover whether she was magical or not. In doing so he discovered a lot of information about her which he really hadn't needed, the girl basically spewed knowledge. Her name was Carmen Velirox, and her surname sounded familiar to Tom. He talked to her for a long time, while Azul flirted with the other girls and bought them drinks upon drinks, until they were all very drunk.

When Azul left with all the other girls, yes _all _the other girls, at least five of them, Carmen rolled her eyes and we both exited the club. Tom guessed that she was a little like him in that she always got left behind when the sexual riots started. She gave him her phone number and he gave her the number of his wizard communicator which worked in the same way as a muggle phone and she left.

The next time he had met up with Azul he told her about Carmen, and Azul seemed delighted that Tom had finally found himself a romatic interest. Tom insisted he was just curious about her but Azul obviously didn't believe him. He spent a couple of weeks looking for the name 'Velirox' in the books he usually read, but came up blank and eventually forgot about her.

It wasn't until nearing the end of the summer holidays that he thought about her again. he was reading one of the newspaper articles in the Daily Prophet and it was a discussion of the vampire movements in the french alps. Tom had been stunned to read that the name of the vampire that was causing all of the problems was 'Methuei Velirox'. He had a sudden revelation and went to check in one of his books of vampires, a little read novel about the history of one of the vampiric lines.

It was a magically charmed book which had magical links to that particular lineage, and sure enough, when Tom looked through the records he found the name of Methuei Velierox, whose sire had been the childe of one of the greatest vampires of an age, one who had had connection with Salazar Slytherin himself. Methuei had many children, mostly sired through power though three through actual intercourse, two males by the names of Vekhun and Eltarre and one female, Kirmuin.

When a vampire sired a childe, it was either through power or intercourse. If sired through power, a childe would change from a human to a vampire, and as their human body aged their vampiric powers increased, resulting in a power burst as the time came for their human body to die and they began solely relying on their vampirity to keep them walking. A childe sired through intercourse, especially between two vampires, was as powerful as the stronger of their parents from birth, and although their power did not grow as fast as that of a childe sired through power it was still vastly greater, and always would be.

It didn't take long for Tom to recognise 'Carmen' to be Kirmuin. He went and searched for details on Kirmuin Velirox and found them unsurprisingly more available than on 'Carmen Velirox'. He sent an owl to the Velirox castle, never expecting a reply, and was shocked beyond reason when Kirmuin turned up in his bedroom at the orphanage the very next day!

It didn't take lone for Tom to realise what had happened, even though it worried him significantly. Kirmuin had an obsessive personality, meaning whatever she decided was hers, was almost certainly made hers. And she decided that Tom belonged to her.

She followed him around constantly for the rest of the summer holidays, refusing to leave him alone, acting like she was his girlfriend when people got curious and always bugging him, asking him if he would be her boyfriend and so on and so on. She looked over his shoulder when he wrote letters and tore up ones which said bad stuff about her, so he couldn't even tell anyone because noone ever believed that such a pretty girl would do that.

It even continued when he went back to Hogwarts. She sent owls to him every single day, in the mornings, evening and even in lunchtimes. She even found a way of getting her pet raven to deliver love notes during classes and Tom was humiliated more than once by teachers confiscating the letters and reading them out to the class. No-one ever believed him when he told them that he didn't want to see her.

Surprisingly, Azul was the most sympathetic. He explained that what Tom had gotten himself was a stalker, and as he had supposedly been assaulted by stalkers previously, though he admitted none were as persistant and deicated as Kirmuin, he agreed to help Tom get rid of her.

It had taken until christams, and Tom was never quite sure how Azul had done it, but the ravens stopped bothering him in class and the owls petered out until he only got one a day, then one a week, then none. Over the christamas holidays he went to stay with Azul, even though his parents frowned upon his halfbloodedness, and while they were there there was a formal dinner evening at the Malfoy Manor, which Kirmuin attended.

She didn't speak to him for the whole night. Tom suspected it might have had something to do with the was Azul kept giving her filthy looks, but none the less she stayed clear of him the entire time. She did however stare at him for five hours solid, with as rosy a blush as a vampire could get, and it was that image, of Kirmuin blushing furiously, that had linked itself to the sight of Hart with the faint blush adorning his cheeks now.

It was funny, Tom thought. Kirmuin had looked silly, awkward and pathetic when she was blushing. Hart looked cute and even endearing and even though Tom pushed the thoughts down deep hinside him he could stop the want to go over to Hart and hug him, maybe even kiss him.

Alright everyone, time to start viewing your stars. If you would take your positions by your telescopes and begin." Professor Oria's voice floated over to their corner and Hart sighed and got up from where he'd been leaning on the wall.

"Do you want to write, or shall I?" He said, and Tom had to force himself not to flinch as the voice sparked painful memories of the dreams.

"You write. I'll look at the stars." He decided, and Hart nodded before pulling up a chair to beside the telescope and taking the paper, turning to look at Tom expectantly. Tom forced himself not to shudder and turned away.

He gazed up the telescope and out into the night sky. There was a blessed absence of clouds tonight and so every star was clear and bright. Tom liked astronomy, but never seemed to get the hang of it, usually getting too transfixed by the beauty of their glow before he could make any conclusive findings.

_No, I must show Hart that I can do it._ He told himself firmly, and sought out the fuzz of light that was Mars and Venus passing in line with one another. He looked to the left of it, and murmured the star name and location to Hart, who he saw immediately take it down. They continued like this for a while and it was peaceful, not having to do anything, and Tom let himself relax slightly.

Harry concentrated on writing down what Tom was telling him, and not reliving the dream. It was hard, and it had been getting harder ever since he had entered the room.

When he had first woken up he had been momentarily horrified with himself, having such a dream about Tom, but after hyperventilating and waking up Azul he had been almost force-fed a calming potion. After a few gulps of the cool liquid Harry could think rationally again, and began to explore his feelings regarding Tom.

Maybe it was the effect of the potion, or maybe it was just that something in Harry was tired of self-denial, but as Harry sifted through his feelings he discovered that he _did_ feel something for Tom. It was similar, but different to what he'd felt for Cho and Ginny though, and Harry put it down to Tom being a boy and not a girl.

When he entered the classroom and saw Tom standing there he forced himself not to react in any way, nor to give any sign that he had noticed Tom more than any other person. He knew that even if he did feel something for Tom, there was no way on earth that Tom could feel something for him. Lord Voldemort, and subsequently Tom, was cold, unfeeling and unflinching, he always had and always would be.

If got more difficult as they had to spend time near each other. Harry noticed the wary glances Tom was giving him and using very faint traces of Legilimency deciphered that Tom had dreamt about Harry, though that was all he could discover and from the apprehension in Tom's being, it hadn't been a very nice dream.

Working so close together was torturous. Tom was looking through the telescope so Harry could stare at him as much as he liked, and he caught himself doing it several times. Every time Tom spoke he was jolted out of his reverie and quickly wrote it down, not pausing to let himself enjoy the low tone of Tom's voice or imagine it husky with lust like it had been in the dream. Harry didn't know if Tom even spoke like that.

The starmap took a while, but after it was finished Harry helped Tom pack away. Their hands brushed more than once and Tom pulled away, visibly forcing himself from flinching. Harry wondered what the dream had been about that made him so adverse to even touching Harry.

By the time they had finished they were one of the few left, Tom seemed to have been working slower than others. Indeed, Azul and the rest of the gang were long gone and as Tom and Harry walked down the long spiral stairs to the ground floor there was an awkward silence.

They spilt off at Tom's dorms and Harry left, down the corridor to the dungeons. Harry knew that there was something seriously wrong with him. He needed to go to the library and find the spell that would send him back, because when he finally managed to pull himself together enough to kill Tom there was no way he could afford to make any mistakes with the time travel.

The thing was that Harry was becoming less and less sure that he would be able to kill Tom. Every minute he spent in the other boy's presence just made it worse, made him feel more like forgetting all about his own time and just stay here in the past, maybe he could stop Tom from becoming evil some other way, without having to kill him at all.

No. Harry shook his head, angrily. He had to kill Tom, because if he let Tom continue in the way he was there was no way he would be able to guarantee that Tom wouldn't turn evil. All he had to do was remember back to the fiasco with time in his third year to know that he had to make a significant change or the timestream would just work itself all back out and he would be dumped right back where he came from, two seconds away from a one way trip to the afterlife, courtesy of the person he was currently trying to keep himself from fancying.

As he walked he chanted in his head his mantra, even though he knew it was wrong, and even though he knew that nothing would ever come of it, just to be able to say it gave him strength and comfort.

_I like him. I like Tom. I like Voldemort._

Tom was sitting on his bed, his robes thrown over the chair haphazardly, which was extremely unusual for him, and had his head in his hands. He was breathing slowly, taking deep, calming breaths as he tried to organize the maelstrom of thoughts running thorugh his head. His back was drenched in cold sweat and he was shivering, even though there was a warm fire in the tiny fireplace and he had cast a heat spell on his covers.

He had just woken from a dream, his second of the night. After he had got back from the astronomy lesson he had changed quickly before sliding into bed, refusing to let himself think about anything. He knew that he would come to some rather unpleasant conclusions if he did and it was definitely not something he wanted to do. He didn't want to ruin what aquaintablility he had with Hart, especially as the boy was so interesting.

The dream had been almost a repeat of his nightmare earlier. The same sorts of thing, mocking voices and laughter, cold, clammy hands touching him and bodies slick with sweat around him and in him, and all the time Hart's mocking laughter and his face so close, kissing Tom roughly and possesively, kissing him so hard that it hurt, biting and drawing blood to make Tom scream in pain, because it always hurt so much when those green eyes were watching him, always watching him...

Suddenly Tom froze. He ran through the last thought in his mind. Green. Green eyes. In his dreams, Hart always had green eyes, the black pupils surrounded by a ring of molten green, like liquid fire or the colour of the Avada Kedavra spell. Now that was very strange. Hart had brown eyes, the colour of dark chocolate, Tom knew he did because he had spent quite a while watching Hart, first to learn his secrets and then just because he liked to.

When Tom had first found Hart on the edge of the lake, hadn't the boy had green eyes then? Yes, he had, Tom could remember being surprised at just how green they were. But later on they had met again and Hart had had brown eyes. What was it he had said? Something about contact lenses? But what were they? And how had Hart managed to grow his hair four or five inches in such a short time? Maybe there was a spell, somewhere.

Tom made a mental note to research how Tom could have changed his hair length so fast, and also to look up what contact lenses were. He thought they sounded muggle, and his intuition was rarely wrong, but you never could tell.

Sighing, Tom reached for his wand and cast a drying charm on his bed and then lay back down in it, trying to keep warm. As he stared up at the ceiling he could feel the thoughts and feelings clamouring behind his eyes, wanting to be explored and explained. If he didn't do it now he might never get to sleep.

There was something about Hart, that was obvious. Something about the boy who, now he came to think of it, looked so much like Tom himself it was almost scary, and who had just as many secrets. Tom could still see, if he focused hard enough, the green eyes snapping open as the boy lay on the ground beside the lake, and the way, even before they looked at him, they were haunted, filled with such an unbearable pain that it had almost been enough to make Tom recoil in shock.

Now that he examined the memory, he realised that what he had seen that one time in Hart's eyes was the same emotion he saw in his own every time he looked in the mirror. And if his own past was anything to go by, Hart must have been though hell to get the same eyes as Tom.

Thinking back to the exact way Hart's eyes had looked, all the creases of pain around the face and the eyes, Tom could guess at what exactly had happened to Hart. He must have killed, yes, there was the deep, dark shadow of a killer in there, and he must have watched people close to him die as well.

He lay back down on the sheets, but rose again almost immediately, unable to bear the feel of the clammy fabric beneath his skin. He got up from the bed and pulled on a pair of muggle jeans and a warm jumper before crossing the rooms and leaving his quarters.

His idea had been to go to the library to do a little late-night studying, to take his mind off of things, but he found instead that his feet lead him back to the astronomy tower. He walked over to the edge of the stone floor and leaned over the edge, leaning on the wall and looking out over the lake and the forest beyond.

The landscape really was beautiful at night. The lake sparkled with moonlight as if there were a million fairies flitting above its surface, and the trees rustled in the distance, like they were whispering to one another of secrets that only trees knew. Tom let the cool night wind play through his hair and could feel it blowing around his face, black strands brushing his forehead and getting in his eyes.

Unbidden, the image of Hart slithered into his mind like the snake Tom knew he was, and sat there, brown-no-green eyes staring at him and asking silent questions which Tom refused to answer.

"You are nothing. You haven't got half of my power and you are _nothing_ to me." He said to it, but the image wasn't listening, and kept watching him, asking and asking.

"I _can't_ like you. You are... you are a puzzle, and puzzles are dangerous. Getting close to anyone is a risk, but getting close to you would be like asking to be hurt."

_But isn't that what you want? What you need? You've spent your whole life hiding from the things that are dangerous. Maybe by experiencing danger and surviving it, you will grow stronger. Loving someone doesn't necessarily mean pain, you know._ The voice whispered to him, traitorous and tempting.

"No. Love does not make you strong, love makes you _weak_. And I will not be weak. And I don't love him"

_But why shouldn't your weaknesses be ommited by his strengths? Why shoudln't you help each other? Together, you could have more power than anyone in the world. Even Dumbledore. And you are very, very close to loving him._

Enough power to outwit Dumbledore. Now that really was tempting. Dumbledore had been a thorn in his side, a glitch in his plans for years. Dumbledore was the only person who Tom feared, albeit with the grudging, respectful fear of a student towards a teacher. All the other members of staff loved him, but not Dumbledore. He hoped that he would be the one who killed the old man.

What had the voice meant, 'close to loving him.'? Tom didn't love Hart, that was preposterous, love was for sappy schoolgirls and weaklings. _More power than anyone else in the world..._ Power was good, and if Hart was completely on his side then he knew that his power would be magnified immensely.

"I...love him." Tom tried out the words. They sounded false, but there was that little twist of his heart that he realised, with a sinking feeling, that was the sign of his heart wanting the words to be true. "I love him." He said again, and now they sounded less false, and were accompanied by a definite twinge of emotional pain.

"Dammit, this is what I wanted to avoid, emotional pain!" He said to nothing in particular. "I don't love him."

He almost cried out. The weight of the words was heavy, and the emotional pain was far, far worse than it had been before, accompanied by a twinge in his chest that he knew meant that it was wrong.

"Oh Merlin." He said, shaking his head and rasing his eyes to the stars far, far above him in the heavens. "I love him." Pain, but not a lot, a lot less than before. "I love him." Again, and now the words sounded almost true, with hardly any falsity about them whatsoever. "I love him!" He said louder, and as it echoed around the stone tower room he felt something rise in his heart and a little blossom of fire. This was good, this was right.

He gripped the stone wall with both hands and leant far over until he was almost half way off the tower. The stars glittered in the corners of his vision and the lake was spread out before him, reflecting the stars and the moon and the forest whispered its secrets. He took a deep breath of cool, beautifully sweet night air and raised his voice to the heavens, shouting with all his might as the blossom of fire burst into a thousand sparkling tingles that were like miniture stars all over him.

"_I love him_!."

Author's Notes: I know, I know, I said id write around easter but the stupid story wouldnt cooperate. Thankfully I got a bunch of pre-exam inspiration and so I wrote this while I was meant to be revising. Oh no, how terrible. Not. So, I finally buckled down and wrote partial-smut, even if it isnt in real life yet. Dont worry, There will be real life smut in the next chapter, which will probably be posted after my summer exams are over. Damn, why do there have to be so many exams? Review people, you know you want to! Let me know you love me!


	5. The Ultimate Confession

**Author:** Silverhair Theory

**Rating: **M

**Disclaimer: **I nothing. JKRowling owns everything. If you prosecute me all you're likely to get is my sweet stash and my teddy bear, so I wouldn't advise it.

**THE GIFT OF A SECOND CHANCE**

_Chapter 4: The Ultimate Confession_

Harry came round to the sound of Azul and Vlad arguing over who had used the last of the boisenberry-flavoured soap. Deciding he didn't want to know, Harry had got up and dressed. As he pulled his robes on he remembered that it was the Annual Winter Ball tomorrow, and that he needed to get some dress robes. In fact, the only options for that were today and tomorrow.

Azul eventually admitted to having used the last of the soap, after threats of Veritaserum from Vlad, who was actually quite a competant potions brewer. He also volunteered to go shopping for some more, seeming almost excited about it, and even invited everyone else along as well. Rupert and Jerry said they'd pass, but Vlad agreed to go and so did Harry, on the grounds of getting some half-decent dress robes instead of some of Azul's strange purple ones.

Azul, deciding that they needed to go early if they were going to go at all, made them all go and ask Tom whether he wanted to come as well. When Tom answered the door Harry almost took a step back. Riddle wasn't wearing a shirt and his hair was messed up in bed hair. He looked just like he did in the dreams and Harry mentally sighed as he realised that he was going hard.

Tom growled at Azul and asked what the hell he wanted. Azul replied cheerily that they were going shopping, would he like to come? Tom said that if Azul ever asked him such a stupid question ever again, he'd _crucio_ him. Azul smiled ruefully and apologized for waking Riddle up, then they left.

Harry hadn't realised it before, but apparently it was perfectly all right for seventh years to take trips to Hogsmeade during their study breaks, and as none of them had many classes that day, it was a perfect excuse to leave the confines of the castle. The pale wintry sun was just warm enough to stop them from shivering, and it cast everything in a pale light, making the trees and grass look faintly ethereal.

The three boys wandered down the track to Hogsmede. Azul kept up a happy chatter; discussing with the air, which robes he wanted to buy, which formal functions he was attending over the Christmas holidays and what he was going to buy with his allowance. Harry walked along beside him, listening and inwardly grinning as he counted off the similarities between Azul, Lucius and Draco.

By the time they reached Hogsmeade it was about mid-morning and the sun was halfway up the sky and still not very warm. The boys parted ways in the town centre, Azul to go to the magical hair care shop, Vlad to the bookshop, promptly disappearing and leaving Harry to make his way to the large, commercial robe store, not the one which he had visited with Tom but a larger, more fully stocked one.

On the way down the street he passed a shop with a brightly coloured sign. His eyes slid across the flashing words and as they slid slowly into his mind he did a double take and looked again.

_SALE! SALE! SALE!_

_25 Reduction on all books on Time!_

_To celebrate the release of the sequel to the acclaimed _What To Do if You Meet a Future Self_ by Omar Zenool, we are giving having a 25 reduction on all books about Time, including the new book by Omar Zenool, _Time Turners - What, Where and When

Now was a good a time as any to research how he was going to get back to his own time eventually, and in fact now might even be an good time, he was alone, not expected anywhere and he knew Tom was back in the castle. He slipped into the shop and went over to where the books on time and related subjects were.

After looking through the shelves at books such as _Lost in Time_, _Time etc_ and _What Not to do in Another Time_, he turned to the book display and picked up a copy of _Time Turners - What, Where and When _and began to flick through.

It was mostly trivial, things like how to care for your time turner, where you could obtain one and a supposedly brief, but actually thirty page-long introduction on the history of time turners. Then, just as he was about to give up hope, he spotted a passage near the end of a chapter the author had obviously put in as a footnote, hardly worth looking at.

_Although most time turners work in the same way, i.e. transporting you to a location a few hours, days or even weeks back, they do have a limit. Time turners should not be used for journeys any longer than a period of a year, and the farther a person travelling through time, the more strain it puts on the turner. At such times when a person has travelled more than a year, there is a very small chance the turners own magic will distort the fabric of the space-time continuum. In this case the turner will stick in one position, not allowing any more changes in time until the space-time continuum snaps back into place. When this happens, the amount of magic placed on a turner is rarely enough to do any damage, simply returning the wearer and itself back to the original time when the charms break from the strain. Very occasionally, however, the turner will start creating random bursts of time magic, not unlike young wizards magic bursts from before their magic is channelled. This magic creates holes in time, allowing the people in close proximity to the turner visions of the time is was originally from, until the turner succumbs to the strain of over-use and catapults the user back to the original time. The further the turner travels, the more likely these random visions will occur._

Harry tried to decipher the meaning from the maze of technical words, and slowly an understanding came to him. Basically, he had a limited amount of time before random warp-holes opened near him and showed everyone around that he wasn't from this time. And eventually the time turner would pack in completely and bump him back to his own time, against his will or otherwise. And he basically had to wait for it to happen.

Sighing, he placed the book back on the pile, ignoring the evil glares he was getting from the bookshop assistant. He started to make his way out of the shop, trying not to get lost. The shop was constructed to be significantly larger inside than it was outside, like a wizarding tent, or Mr Weasley's old Ford Anglia.

The reason that the bookshop was so large was because it had to hold all the books that all the visitors to Hogsmeade might need, and this was an awful lot of books. The shelves also had an annoying habit of changing places as he walked so he had to switch paths as he walked and he suspected he was going round in circles. However, as the place where he had started was now probably surrounded by entirely different shelves, he was a little confused.

As he passed through the section on medi-magic, he noticed a figure that looked vaguely familiar, standing with his back to Harry and running a finger along a row of books. Closer inspection revealed that it was Vlad, and Harry watched the black-haired boy for a few seconds, as he took a thick, white leather bound book and flicked through it, before placing it back on the shelves and continuing with his browsing.

Deciding that it was none of his business what Vlad was buying, Harry headed forward again and was soon lost in the maze of books. He estimated that it took him about ten minutes to get out of the shop, and he stood, looking back through the entrance at the now simple-looking interior. He scowled at it and moved on.

He was heading for the robe shop which he had planned to go to earlier. He entered it and looked around in wonder. Now this was what a robe shop was meant to look like.

From floor to ceiling on three sides, there were racks of robes, facing outwards so buyers could see what they wanted. There were small flying coat hangers with wire arms hovering around, waiting to get a robe down for anyone who wanted one. The robes themselves were splendid. They were sewn in every colour, gold, silver, green, red, blue, even sunshine yellow, and Harry vaguely wondered if this was where Dumbledore shopped for his special occasions robes. The walls were divided into sections, with the dress robes and fancier styles on his left, the ordinary, less extravagant robes on his right and on the back wall hung row upon row of speciality robes, Quidditch robes, fancy-dress robes and other robes which Harry wasn't even sure what they were for. There were even racks on the floor, but they held things like hats, masks and various accessories that would make the perfect outfit that much more special. With the collision of colour, the slight hum of the wings of the coat hangers, the murmur of the shop assistants and the chatter of customers, Harry was almost overwhelmed.

A flash of blonde hair made him turn and with a grin he saw Azul being attended to by at least six coat hangers and three assistants. He had a variety of robes surrounding him, on the hangers, on the assistants arms and on the floor in heaps. He was currently examining a moss green set of robes with tiny golden stars on the lining, giving the impression of a slightly obscure Christmas tree. Around him, obviously just having been dismissed were a set of sky blue robes with silver hems, a deep purple robe with red sparkles at intervals along the material and, startlingly, a shocking pink robe with neon green hems. Turning his eyes away from the fashion nightmare, Harry listened to what Azul was saying.

"No, that simply won't do. Don't you people understand, I want something_ fabulous_. I want people to say 'look at him' when he enters a room, and I want people to fall over themselves to be near me. I am a Malfoy, I cannot possibly wear something_ sub-standard_." The very horror which Azul managed to insert into the last two words was enough to make Harry laugh. Azul was so like Draco. He pushed away the sadness and walked over, one eyebrow raised at the spectacle Azul made.

"Ah, Hart, just the man I need. I was just telling these people, fen green is _totally_ unsuitable for a Malfoy. If it is green, it must be snake green, such a beautiful colour, and very fitting for a house that has been Slytherin for centuries. Rule 456 of the Malfoy Code, A Malfoy must be pristinely dressed at all times. It wouldn't do to lower oneself to the level of commoners." Harry was in silent laughter, and he was thanking his lucky stars that Azul hadn't noticed. When he had first discovered that the Malfoys actually _believed_ all the purist and perfectionist rubbish they spouted, he had been shocked, but he had gotten used to it and it was so funny seeing how much Azul was like he son and grandson, counting the mannerisms that they shared.

Harry rubbed his eyes, and blinked up at the fluttering coat hangers, forcibly telling himself not to cry. He would never have thought he would cry over someone like Lucius Malfoy, but he was a link to his life, the real life, that only after four days, was becoming a blur, hazy with fleeting memories and regret. He had to consciously tell himself to call it his 'real' life.

At least he didn't have to be worried about being bumped back through time at any moment. If the book had been correct, there would be several visions of the future before he was catapulted back to his own time.

He signalled to one of the flying coat hangers and it flitted over him and hung, hovering in the air in front of him, waiting for instructions. Harry paused. He really had no idea what kind of dress robes to get. The emerald green robes that he had had in fourth year were somewhere in the future, and anyway he didn't have emerald green eyes anymore so it wouldn't suit him as well.

There was a "Hah!" From somewhere near him and he looked up from his musings. Azul was looked pleased and triumphant, holding a bunch of material that resembled a wedding dress. "This. This is _perfect_. I shall get this one. You, see to it." He pushed the white fabric at an assistant who neatly caught it on top of the piles of other clothing he was carrying, and strode away with it. The other two assistants and the coat hangers set about returning the discarded robes to their hangers, the assistants magically straightening them by running their wands down them.

Azul stood watching them for a few seconds then seemed to notice Harry again. "Hart!" He said, and made his way over to where Harry was standing with the coat hanger still fluttering around his head. "How interesting! Are you buying dress robes too? Perfect, I can help you. I have quite an eye for fashion, you know. Vivian Parkinson takes tips from me sometimes." He paused in his tirade and looked Harry up and down, silver eyes sweeping all over his body, and Harry felt indecent. Azul was making 'Hmm'-ing noises and eyeing Harry's figure quizzically, but Harry could swear that there was hints of other things there. Thankfully, Azul seemed to finish his inspection, and turned away, clapping his hands.

Almost immediately there were several coat hangers humming in the air above them, and he spoke individually to them. "You, go and find me that midnight blue satin with emerald green edging. You, fetch that red and gold toned with the silk cuffs. You, see if you can find me something in snake green and black, any design, preferably satin. You, go and take the black with red velvet cuffs and lining off of those incompetent fools of assistants, quickly before they crease it." And so on. The flying coat hangers flitted away and came swiftly back, dripping fabric. They let the robes down in neat piles and waited for the next order. And there were lots of orders.

Harry watching in half fascination, half horror, as the piles around him grew until they were several robes high. Then, abruptly, Azul turned to him and picked up a robe, pushing it at him. "Come on." He said. "Hold this up against yourself." Harry did as bid, slightly worried by the intensity of the glow in Azul's eyes, and Azul regarded him for a few moments, arms crossed, before saying "No. Absolutely not. Try this one!" And shoving another set of fabric at him.

This continued for quite a while. Harry would have found it funny, had he not been busy holding cloth up against him like there was no tomorrow. Azul gave him a calculating look each time and the pile of discarded robes on the floor grew bigger and bigger. Some robes Azul discard almost before Harry had taken hold of them, others lasted a good minute or so under scrutiny.

Harry stopped noticing what he was holding up shortly after the start, so he was startled when Azul, instead of proclaiming the hideous-ness of the robes, instead said "Aha! Now, this, this is what we want! You, go and get me all the styles of robe you have in this colour." He had taken the robe away from Harry, and given it to one of the coat hangers, which had flown away before Harry could see exactly what it was like. The other coat hangers set about tidying up the mess Azul had made.

Azul turned back to Harry and smiled a dazzling smile, which made Harry want to blink and step back. "Um...Azul...I didn't actually get to see them. I kind of want to see them before I wear them at the ball tomorrow." Instead of decreasing the smile, the sentence actually seemed to make Azul grin more and he answered as brightly as his smile.

"Oh really? You're wearing them to the dance? Oooh, what are you going as?" Azul looked eager, but Harry was puzzled. Going as? What did Azul mean?

"What do you mean, what am I going as?" Harry said.

"You know!" Azul said. "Its like a...oh, what do the muggles call it...a fancy dress party? No, its like... a masquerade, you know, you dress up and wear a mask and everything."

"What?" Harry said. He hadn't expected this. He had thought the dance was just a dance. Great! Now not only did he have to ask someone, he also had to pick out an outfit. "Oh no." He groaned. "I had no idea! What am I going to go as?"

Azul stepped back and looked Harry over thoroughly again. Harry stood there and let him, deciding it would look weird if he shied away. "Hmm..." Azul said. "Yes...yes...I know!" He clicked his fingers and a coat hanger sped over. Azul whispered to it and it flew away, returning with a black outfit, which looked more along the lines of trousers and shirt than wizarding robes.

Azul took it from the hanger and held them up for Harry to see. They didn't actually look that bad, in fact, Harry thought they might look quite good on him, and he let Azul take them over to the desk and pay for them. After that they took the box and walked back out into the village, where it had started to snow.

They met Vlad coming from the bookshop and they walked back to the castle together. Azul happily chattered away about robes but neither Harry nor Vlad was listening to him. Harry was thinking back to what he had found in the bookshop. If the book had been correct, and Harry had no reason to suspect that it wasn't, then he needed to start making plans for what he was going to do once the visions started happening. It could be potentially disastrous if somebody else saw one and saw their children or grandchildren, or even themselves.

The snow was fluttering down like icing sugar by the time they reached the school, but despite the cold there were a surprising number of students on the grounds. Most were just walking but some had mini-campfires or spells that were obviously keeping them warm. Azul spotted Tom sitting by a tree next to the lake and he led Harry and Vlad over to him.

Tom looked up as they came over. Harry saw the way his hair brushed in his eyes, speckled with snow, and the way the cold had tinted his ears and cheeks the faintest of pinks. He didn't appear to have cast a heat spell on himself and was just sitting there looking out over the lake.

Harry looked around, and realised with a jolt that this had been where Tom had found him when he had arrived in the current time. They were sitting just a few feet away from the place where Harry had fallen onto the cold earth and it was obvious, by the way Tom looked at him, that he knew it too.

Azul, not knowing anything of this, happily sat down and began casting spells on the surrounding area to fend off the worst of the cold. He was still talking, and Harry wondered how a man, even one who was disturbingly feminine, could talk so much. Tom hadn't said one word to any of them yet and was resolutely staring out over the grey, choppy surface of the lake. Next to Harry sat Vlad, whose face was impassive, leaning against a tree and ignoring everyone.

When Azul took out his wand again and conjured mugs of hot chocolate, Tom had clearly had enough of all this forced cheerfulness. He got up and stalked over to the edge of the lake, away from the circle of warmth, and stood there, hands in the pockets of his robe, back to the rest of them, still staring out at the water. Azul barely paused in his tirade, glancing at the boy standing in the cold, but carrying on anyway.

"What's up with him?" Harry asked in an undertone.

"Oh, don't mind Tom." Azul said, quiet enough so Tom wouldn't hear them. "He's having one of his off days, I think. Gets them from time to time, and the only thing you can do is to just wait it out."

Harry nodded, but couldn't help watching Tom as he stood, upright and braced against the wind, which was picking up and must have been bitterly cold, not even flinching. Harry fingered the stony ground next to him and his hand found a stone, which looked perfect for skimming. He got up and walked over to the lake, past Tom, to stand at the edge.

He looked calculatingly at the rock in his hand, then at the asphalt-coloured waves. He crouched, holding the stone in the crook of his hand, and flicked it, sending the stone spinning out to skim across the surface of the lake, one, two, three, four times, before sinking to the bottom and out of sight.

"Pathetic." A voice came from behind him, and Harry turned around to see that it was Tom who had spoken. He was standing, unmoving, not even looking at Harry.

"Yeah? Lets see you do better." Harry said, knowingly challenging the other boy, and Tom turned his head slightly to look at him. Harry smirked, and Tom frowned, but looked down and after a couple of seconds picked a round stone from a place near his feet.

He walked to stand next to Harry, and put his hand out, ready. Then he flung the stone in a curve across the surface of the lake and it skipped five times. He turned to Harry with a smirk on his face, but Harry was already crouching down, searching for another stone. The game continued as each boy sent stones skimming across the grey surface of the lake, as Vlad and Azul watched.

After a few minutes, the game got more serious as it became clear that there was a definite rivalry between Harry and Tom. Tom was the one initiating it, taunting Harry wordlessly and making Harry annoyed. The stones skipped further and further, as many as ten or eleven skips before they sank out of sight. However, it wasn't very hard to see that Harry was better at it than Tom.

When Harry did an amazing fourteen skips, Tom suddenly threw down the stone he'd been holding ready and stormed off, wordlessly, towards the castle. Harry watched him striding away, then looked puzzled towards Azul and Vlad. Azul shrugged at him and Vlad avoided his gaze. Sighing, Harry followed the retreating dark form over the grounds, now covered with a thin layer of snow that was still floating down.

He followed Tom into the castle, but instead of going down to the dungeons, Tom paused at the end of a corridor and instead headed in the opposite direction. Harry was thrown for a few seconds then went after the other boy's retreating form. He was careful to be quiet, wanting to see where Tom was going that was better than the dungeons.

Tom's anger was radiating off him in almost visible waves, and as he strode through the corridors people parted like the red sea. Some did it unconsciously, their sense of self-preservation kicking in to make them step to the side. Others were very aware of what they were doing.

They passed into an area of the school that seemed vaguely familiar to Harry. He recognised many of the paintings on the walls and could have sworn he saw a familiar fat knight chasing a squat pony through a picture as he passed it, but didn't have time to stop. Tom was going faster now, and Harry almost had to run to keep up.

Suddenly Tom turned off through a door, and Harry came to a stop in front of it, panting. When he looked up at it, he felt a sense of foreboding in his stomach.

The door he was standing in front of led to a girls bathroom. A bathroom that was haunted by the ghost of a schoolgirl. The bathroom that contained the entrance to the chamber of secrets. _Maybe Tom isn't here for the chamber._ Harry said to himself, then sighed. _Oh, who're you kidding?_

He slowly pushed open the door, just in time to see the last traces of the entrance to the chamber slide away, hidden from view. He tiptoed over to the sinks and found the one with the snake scratched into it. Focussing of the coils of the serpent, he opened his mouth, and spoke.

_Open_ He hissed, and the entrance opened again. He head a splash from the cubicle furthest from the door and the shrill voice he knew only too well of belonging to Moaning Myrtle, before jumping down the hole and into the blackness.

As he landed his feet crunched on things he didn't care to see. The bones of whatever the basilisk had eaten in the last thousand years, most likely. He crept through the passage, trying to make as little crunching noise as possible. It was difficult, but he didn't hear any shots from up ahead, so he presumed it was okay.

He entered the main cavern and noted that it hadn't really changed in fifty years. The torchlight still flickered off the walls in a menacing way, the water was still murky and cold and Salazar's face was still threatening. Even the boy from Harry's memories was there, standing on the edge of the pools in front of Salazar's mouth.

Except that in Harry's memories he was taunting Harry, mocking him and crowing over Ginny's forlorn body. Now he was just standing, silent, his fingers undoing the fastenings on his robes.

Harry's brain processed that last thought slowly, as though it was being fed through a cement mixer. It was only when Tom dropped the robes around him and pulled his sweater over his head, lifting up his shirt to show a sliver of flesh, that Harry realised what he was doing, and what it meant.

Tom was going swimming. And you didn't go swimming with your clothes on. That last thought sipped down Harry's spine like a ghostly finger. His eyes were riveted to Tom's form as he unbuttoned his black shirt, one button at a time, with what Harry thought was tortuous slowness. Harry's breath felt like it was caught in his chest and rising higher and higher as Tom's chest was revealed centimetre by centimetre. The skin was as pale as a spirit's, and as Tom pulled the shirt off Harry had to tell himself to breathe. Tom's body was thin, but lithe, the skin pale but looking silky smooth. Harry wanted to run his fingers over it, to make Tom shiver and moan...

Even the fantasy which Harry hadn't realised he was having was cut abruptly short as Tom started to unbuckle his belt. Harry was sure his eyes were bugging out in his head and he was mildly aware that he was choking, but as Tom pulled off the dark trousers to reveal long, slim legs, the same perfect white as his chest, he couldn't bring himself to care anymore. Especially when Tom reached up and hooked his fingers in the waistline of his boxers.

Harry screwed his eyes shut, and pinched himself, to make sure that he wasn't dreaming, but his eyes flew open when he heard a splash. He had apparently missed Tom taking his boxers off and the pale boy was now swimming through the murky water, his form hidden by the cloudy liquid. Part of Harry, the one that was still stuck in his 'real' life, was extremely glad that he couldn't see Tom naked. However there was a much larger and stronger part that was mentally kicking himself for closing his eyes at the moment Tom entered the pools.

Tom seemed to be angry, and he was taking it out on the water. He swum viciously, almost attacking the water, He swum up and down the chamber, swiftly cutting through the water and Harry ducked behind a pillar as he went past his hiding place. Harry was mesmerised by Tom's movement. Even though the water was cloudy, he could see the other boy's back, and the skin moving over the muscle beneath was lithe and taut, like blank canvas. Harry wanted to touch the snowy surface, to see if it felt as heavenly as it looked...

Un-consciously, he let out a low moan of want. It wasn't loud, but it made the boy in the water pause and turn his head, wet hair flopping over his forehead. Harry and Tom's eyes met and the world stilled.

Harry no longer heard the faint trickle of the water coming out of the snake statues' mouths, nor the faint dripping that echoed around the chamber. The only sounds he heard were the ones of water falling from skin as Tom swam over to the edge of the pool and pulled himself out, never once breaking eye contact with Harry. The sounds of feet falling lightly, gracefully, on the damp stone floor, coming closer, approaching.

Harry was suddenly aware that he was breathing very loud. His heart was beating so hard that he was surprised Tom didn't seem to notice. Or maybe he did, and didn't care. Whatever the case, Tom was now standing just inches away from Harry, still looking at him with his unblinking gaze. They stared into each others eyes, Harry not even noticing that he was fully robed and Tom was stark naked in front of him.

Tom's eyelashes flickered and very slowly, he licked his lips.

Harry couldn't take it any more, and stepped forward the couple of inches required to bring him to the point of touching Tom. He leaned forward, not quite sure entirely what he was doing, but unable to stop himself. His conscience was screaming in the back of his head but not nearly loud enough for him to notice, to take his concentration away from the piercing eyes that seemed to come closer as Harry leaned forward.

Tom and Harry's lips met. It was a soft, tentative kiss but with a passion in it that took both kissers breath away and they broke apart, gasping. Eyes never leaving each others, Harry reached up and touched his lips, brushing his fingers against them and revelling in the ghostly feel of lips on his, feeling like they fitted there, like they belonged.

He took a breath to say something and opened his mouth but was cut off by Tom's mouth on his. Tom's tongue flickered across Harry's lips and he parted them, letting Tom in to taste him. Tom tasted of crème caramel, which Harry had only ever had once, a long time in the future when Hermione had taken him out shopping in muggle London and ordered it for him at a café. It had been one of the most bizarre desserts Harry had ever eaten but delicious all the same, so smooth and creamy with the sweetness of the brown sugar caramel that melted in the mouth.

The memory made tears spring to his eyes as he remembered the way Hermione's beautiful hair had been smeared with blood and dirt in the mud. Tom's lips couldn't erase the pain of losing his best friend in front of his eyes and he felt two tears track themselves down his cheeks, blurring his eyesight.

Tom's mouth disappeared from his and for one terrible moment Harry feared Tom was going to leave him and reprimand him for being weak and crying. But then he felt something soft on his cheek, and a tongue licking away the tears on his face. He felt the lips that kissed his eyelids and wiped away the tears as yet unfallen. Then Tom kissed his way down the side of Harry's face, Harry tilting his head back as Tom reached his neck and started taking little nips and bites at the skin. Tom pushed Harry into the pillar, pressing their bodies close together and Harry was suddenly very aware of his clothes.

He plucked at the sleeves of his cloak and Tom seemed to understand the gesture, pulling Harry's cloak off and throwing it aside. Harry didn't see whether it landed in the water or not and frankly, he didn't care. Tom took both of Harry's hands in his, pulling them up over Harry's head and using them to get Harry's sweater off. However, he didn't release them afterwards. Harry was pinned to the pillar by Tom's body, his arms held above his head and his neck and collarbone being assaulted by the barrage of licks and bites that Tom was giving him.

Tom started to undo the buttons on his shirt with one hand but very quickly got frustrated by them and simply tore into the material, ripping it off and raking his nails across Harry's chest at the same time, making Harry groan with desire. Tom's nails were sharp enough to just score lines in the surface of his skin, making it burn like it was on fire without actually hurting very much.

Harry's groan seemed to have registered with Tom as he once again dragged his nails across Harry's chest, this time scoring a little deeper. Harry's whole body was on fire and the pain that bit into him now was welcome, somehow feeling so good. Tom's hands trailed lower to that place on Harry where the fire was centred, scratching every now and then eliciting a moan from Harry. Tom's fingers ghosted over Harry's already-hard erection and it was just like the dream...

The dream. Harry's mind suddenly disconnected itself from the events of the present and remembered the dream. But this wasn't a dream now. This was real. The hand that slipped inside his trousers wasn't an illusion, created by his mind, it was real, solid, and the fingers that were brushing against his cock were real, with sharp nails that brushed the vein going up the side and felt so _good_... No! This was not a dream, this was _real_, this was_ Voldemort_ and he_ should not be doing this._

He pulled away, horrified with himself and found himself looking into amazingly deep teal eyes which were clouded with lust and pained with confusion, hurt and worry. Harry could see Tom's mouth opening to say something, to ask why he was looking at him with horror and fear in his eyes, with condemnation for crimes that the boy in front of him had yet to commit, and he put up his hands as if to shield himself from Tom's gaze.

_I did not just do that. There is no way I just did that. Merlin, I _did_ do that. _His mind was working like a maniac, as if to make up for the few blissful seconds he had just enjoyed. Tom was still looking at him, the lust fading from his eyes, but the hurt and confusion only growing stronger. Harry caught Tom's eyes for just one second, but that was enough and he ran, spitting the exit password to in parseltongue to the stone snake and leaving Tom naked, dripping and full of pain.

Harry sprinted down the stone halls that lead out of the chamber of secrets, his heart pounding and his hands shaking. He scrabbled up the pipe to the girl's bathroom and fled through the open door, splashing through water as he went. He ran full pelt through the castle, not stopping for breath or for anyone.

He saw a couple of faces rush past in a blur, a few first-years and a teacher or too, before he was down in the quiet chill of the dungeons and the Slytherin common room, lit and warmed by a green fire that some fourth years were playing with in the grate. Harry ignored them all and almost flew down the stairs to the seventh year boys dorm, bursting through the door and into the centre of the room before stopping and looking round wildly.

The first thing he saw was Vlad, lying on his bed with a book propped open on his knees and a pile of floating Bertie Botts Every Flavour Beans next to him, which were sailing into his mouth one by one. Then Vlad pulled the book out of sight, as if he didn't want Harry to see it, and seemed to notice the state Harry was in.

"Hart? What's wrong?" Harry heard the words as down a long tunnel and had trouble focussing on the boy on the bed in front of him. Vlad had apparently realised something was seriously amiss because he got off the bed and came towards Harry, tucking strands of black hair behind his ears as he came. Harry managed to focus on the boy and suddenly noticed something very strange about Vlad; his pupils were thicker in the centre than at the edges, making them slightly slitted, not something you would notice unless you were up close.

Vlad seemed worried by the lack of answer and tentatively put a hand out, brushing his fingers across Harry's sleeve. Harry flinched away from the touch and backed away from Vlad. Vlad walked slowly forward and put a hand out, long white nails reaching for Harry's face. Harry tried to pull away but noticed Vlad's eyes, they seemed to be glowing slightly.

Harry felt a touch, no more than feather light, across his cheek and suddenly it was Vlad who was pulling back, flinching and stepping backwards. Harry looked down at Vlad's hand, the one that had touched him, it was clenched and white. When Harry looked back up into Vlad's eyes they had a hint of coldness.

"You've been touching Tom, haven't you." Vlad said, and for a moment, Harry didn't understand him. Then the words slowly filtered through and Harry nodded slowly.

"How...how do you know?" He asked.

Vlad sighed and stepped away, going back to the bed where he had been laying and picking up the book, turning it over in his hands and hiding the front cover from Harry. He turned back and looked up at Harry with worry, foreboding and something, which looked like pleading in his eyes. "I suppose...I suppose you better know everything. I doubt you'd stop asking questions otherwise, and I really hate questions."

Vlad sat down on his bed, still holding the book in his hands, and motioned for Harry to do the same. Harry was feeling slightly more level-headed now but he had a feeling that the night wasn't nearly finished with him, that he would hear a lot more before the sun came up. Vlad pushed a lock of hair behind his ear, catching Harry's attention, and began.

"My mother was born in a remote village in the mountains of Norway. She showed signs of magic at and early age and so her parents, who were wizard and squib, sent her to Durmstrang for her education. She grew up but when she was in her final year, at seventeen, she was involved in a broomstick accident and ended up in the middle of the snowy mountains with nearly every bone in her body broken. She wasn't recovered for three days, but when she was found she seemed perfectly fine, not in the least bit frozen or worse for wear, apart from being unconscious.

"She regained consciousness a few days later and it wasn't until the final days of the school year that it was discovered something was different. At the graduation ceremony one of the students slipped on some ice because they had chosen to wear nice shoes instead of the usual non-slip moccasins, and they cut their arm open. There was quite a lot of blood, and my mother couldn't help herself. She nearly sucked the poor girl dry, and it took several teachers to restrain her and get her to the hospital wing. She was knocked out and examined and the school nurse realised that she was in fact a vampire.

"Once the school discovered what she was they were horrified. Many parents thought it disgraceful that a dangerous beast like my mother had been allowed near their children for so long. None of the wizarding job vacancies were open to her because of her status and her parents refused to allow her back to the village, so in desperation the headmaster of Durmstrang sent an envoy to the nearby vampire colony to ask if they would accept her into their clan. Thankfully, they accepted and so, just before her eighteenth birthday, my mother left her old life to become a childe of the Vampire clan in the Norwegian mountains.

"She grew into her vampire inheritance and lived to see all her family die of old age, along with her school friends and teachers. She was never fully accepted into the clan because she had no familial relations, an in vampire society family, sire and childe, is everything. However, at some point a visiting envoy of vampires from Pennsylvania, the kingdom of the vampires, was sent and during their stay she got quite close to one of the court officials that were on loan from the palace of the vampire king.

"He was powerful, handsome and many years her senior, but they found very good company in each other. He had been a servant of the vampire king his whole life, sired through intercourse between some of the higher-up officials of the court. He was looking for something new and exciting and she was looking for someone to make her feel like she belonged, to make her feel like she had a home. And so when the envoy left they took her with them, back to the land of vampires and the court of the vampire king.

"They spent many decades in each others company, and one thing led to another. They performed the vampiric mating ritual and started life in each other's arms. He was more powerful than she was though, and when vampiric couples have an imbalance of power then nothing ever comes of the union. No children. So my mother took a potent herb, which would boost her power to the level of a full-blood vampire for one night. She lay with my father and fell pregnant with his childe.

"He knew as soon as he saw her that she was pregnant and understood how she had done it. He was not pleased. Vampires are not meant to have children that way, it is unnatural and can cause fatal imperfections in the childe. She had broken one of the vows of their bonding and so he broke the bond and left her. It broke both of their hearts but they had no choice. The punishment for breaking crucial vampire laws like the ones surrounding bonding is to be starved to undeath, the worst way for a vampire to die. He separated rather than face that.

"Unfortunately the curse of the herb my mother had used held true and she died in childbirth as she hid in the wastelands on the edge of the kingdom, to escape the other vampires finding out. The child's cries attracted a foreign wizard who was picking herbs for potions and he took the child back to his home country, England, when he left. Unable to look after the child any more, he sent it to a wizarding orphanage, unaware of its heritage. It grew up in the orphanage as happily as a child can in a place like that until it was 10. Vampire children do not come into their full heritage until they reach the end of their first decade of life.

"On my 10th birthday, I attacked and almost killed my best friend from the orphanage. He was sent to St. Mungos and I was rushed to the mental ward where they discovered what I was. They were going to send me back to Pennsylvania but one of the mediwizards, who was a vampire in disguise, recognised my power signature and saved me. He turned out to be a distant relative of my father and looked after me until I was old enough to come to Hogwarts, teaching me the spells I would need to keep myself hidden from the human population.

"But the thing is, he didn't take into account all the possibilities. Although I can hide from the sun and keep my eyes, skin, nails and hair away from the world most of the time, it is not them which is the problem. Many of the powers of vampires are not listed in any but vampire texts and one of those is the power for both genders to bear children. The ancient powers realised that sometimes males and females paired up and wanted children, so they granted the power for every vampire, female or male, straight or otherwise, to bear young."

Vlad sighed and looked down at the book against his chest. Harry was sure his jaw was just a few inches from the floor. Vlad was a _vampire_? Well, that certainly explained the eyes and the slight edginess he seemed to have around people, but what was this about male pregnancy? Vlad turned the book around and Harry saw the title. _Male Pregnancy : Natural or Unnatural, How to Deal with it._

"You mean...you're pregnant?" Harry said, having difficulty forming the words.

Vlad sighed again, longer this time. "Yes."

"Who..." Harry could hardly bring himself to say it. "Who's the..."

"Father?" Vlad said, giving Harry a little tired half-smile. "I figured you'd ask that. It's...Tom."

There was a few seconds silence. "Tom." Harry said. "Tom. Wait, _Tom_? As in, Tom _Riddle_?"

Vlad nodded, wrapping his arms around his knees and bringing them close to his chest. "It was last year. Azul had been hitting on Tom again, like he usually does, except I think he'd gone a bit further than usual. Everyone in Slytherin knew Azul had the mother of all crushes on Tom but Tom never reciprocated in any way. People just didn't think he did that sort of thing. Asexual, you know? But then he came storming into the common room one evening all flustered and angry. I was drinking wine, its the only thing that stops the bloodlust, and he had some too.

I think we had too much because when we woke up in the morning we were both naked and had obviously gone all the way. Tom realised he'd let someone through his emotional barriers and made me part of his inner circle to prevent loose information. I don't think he ever slipped up like that again. If he did, he probably didn't mean to. He doesn't seem to want to let people get close to him."

Harry was only half-listening, his mind was somewhere else. Tom never let anybody get close enough to hurt him, did he? Well, Harry was close enough to hurt. If he guessed right at Tom's feelings he could make or break him, in exactly the same way Tom affected him. He realised that somewhere in his heart was a little shred of something that had come to really, truly love the other boy, beyond the desire and the attraction.

"Vampire pregnancies are slightly longer than human pregnancies, more in the range of ten to twelve months. I'm due to give birth over the Christmas holidays and my magic is going a little haywire, thats why the spells on my eyes are being affected, as the eyes are the things that I have to cover up the most."

Harry nodded, spacey. He was still pondering the little particle of himself that held true, deep feelings for Tom that he almost missed the last sentence. He looked up. "You mean you look really different? Can I see?" He said. Vlad looked at him for a few seconds as if calculating his sincerity, before nodding and getting up to stand in the middle of the room. Harry turned on his bed to face him and watched Vlad cast a locking spell on the door.

The dark haired boy closed his eyes and crossed his arms over his chest. He muttered something under his breath and all of a sudden he started to change. The first thing Harry noticed was his hair. Where is had been just below shoulder length it flowed down to about ankle length, still the same deep black. There was a sudden smell of sulphur and something behind Vlad cracked before hissing and Harry stared as two black leathery bat-wings sprouted from Vlad's back, tearing his shirt. There was a _shthick_ as Vlad's long white nails darkened and lengthened until they were claws, black as night and about five inches long. His skin paled several shades until he was snow-white, corpse colour, and Harry caught a slight graveyard smell coming off of him. The transformations stopped and Vlad uncrossed his arms, eyes still closed. He shook himself and then opened his eyes. Where human eyes had white edges, Vlad's eyes were molten silver which visibly swirled and fascinated the eye. The iris was a crimson, blood red and just around the black, slitted pupil were flecks of gold.

Harry was so busy staring at Vlad with a mixture of awe, fascination and shock that he nearly didn't hear the knock on the door. THe voice from outside was muffled but there was no mistaking who it was. "Hello? Hart, are you in there? Let me in, I need to talk to you." Tom sounded apprehensive but sincere. Harry looked at Vlad, who had started reversing the transformation as soon as he heard the knock. The eyes were fading back to human, the claws were nails again and the winds had nearly disappeared, taking with them the smell of sulphur and graveyards. When Vlad was passably human he grabbed a shirt from his dresser and shrugged it on before nodding at Harry to open the door.

Harry undid the locking charm and pulled the door open, avoiding the teal gaze he knew would be fixed on him. He stepped back and Tom came into the room, pausing when he saw Vlad sitting on his bed watching him warily. There was a very awkward silence where Vlad watched Tom, Tom watched Harry but took glances to Vlad and Harry avoided looking at either of them, preferring the velvet carpet and his own shoes.

Vlad coughed. "Well, I'm going to go and see where Azul went. Sort it out. And before you ask, Tom, yes, I did tell him." The pale boy stood and crossed the room giving Harry a meaningful look as he passed and Harry looked up. Harry could've sworn he saw a flash of red in the other boy's eyes before the black hair was disappearing out of the door as it swung shut.

Harry kept looking at the floor, back against the wall and hands loose, not knowing quite what to do with them. He closed his eyes as he heard Tom crossing the room towards him, but opened them as he felt a hand on his chin, lifting his head up. His vision was pulled up Tom's entire body and he saw Tom had put on loose black robes that were slightly damp at the bottom, with no shoes. His head was coaxed upwards more by those soft fingers and his vision passed over lips still swollen from kissing before meeting perfect teal eyes that were struggling to hide the emotion in themselves.

"Hart..." Tom said softly and Harry could feel the other boy shaking, they were both shaking and Tom reached with his left hand, the one not touching Harry to take Harry's left hand so their hands were between them, both shaking. "Hart..."

"Tom..." Harry said, hearing the tremor in his voice only too clearly.

"Hart...Why did you run away?" Harry's throat was clenched up, he couldn't talk, he could barely breathe. He felt one of Tom's long pale fingers stroking the back of his hand and managed to speak.

"I...I was scared, Tom."

"Why?"

"Because..." Harry closed his eyes. Why was he scared of Tom? It wasn't because of his future as Voldemort, Harry had ceased caring about that. It was because Tom had touched something inside him, somewhere no-one had ever reached before. Tom took a deep breath and Harry opened his eyes.

"You've got inside me, Hart. I promised myself once that I would never fall in love, because it was too painful. Being in love is waiting to get hurt and I could stand almost any physical pain but I don't think I could stand it if something were to happen to you. I never wanted to feel like this, I don't know why I feel like this, but I do. I hate the way your skin feels against mine, the way I feel empty when in not around you. You make me weak, and I need to be strong. I hate the way I love you, because if anything ever happened, If you say you don't love me too then I know I'll go mad knowing that I was right not to fall in love, I was right to hold back and not cross the one bridge I thought I'd permanently knocked down. So this is me reaching out, from the river that I've fallen into, and looking into your eyes wanting harder than I've ever wanted anything before. Say you love me too."

Tom fell silent, and the silence that fell was something Harry knew he would never forget, the period of nothing and everything that hung between one confession of love and the other, the time during which he stood on the river's edge, looking into the rushing water at the figure which had its hand outstretched, the one who had had the courage to jump first and waited for nothing more than a hand to hold on to that would pull them up.

"Tom...I've never said this to anyone before, and if I ever thought about saying it to someone you were the very last person on my mind. But here I am, with feelings I know I can't deny because however hard I want them to go away, however hard I need them to be gone, to be non-existent...they aren't. They're there, and somehow you've managed to break into me, reach something inside me I've never felt, never had anyone touch before. I love you Tom. Never doubt it, because the pain in my heart tells me its true."

Harry smiled at Tom, eyes glistening with tears. He raised a hand to wipe them away but Tom caught it and held it to his mouth, kissing it while looking at Harry all the time. Then he leant forward and Harry's eyes flickered shut, letting Tom kiss his eyelids, taking the tears away. When Harry opened his eyes again he saw that Tom was smiling too. There was pain and sorrow in that smile but a burning undercurrent of pure love, and Harry's heart swelled from knowing that someone could feel that depth of emotion for him.

Tom leaned forward again, stopping just before their lips met and letting his eyes fall closed so Harry felt the flicker of Tom's eyelashes as he leaned in Tom's mouth, Tom's kiss. This was nothing like the kisses they had shared before. The others had been full of passion, raw need and desire. This was...different. An emphasis of love, tender and bittersweet and utterly complete. Tom put one arm around Harry's waist, the other stroking his face, and Harry wrapped both arms around Tom's neck, leaning into his embrace.

Tom's tongue brushed Harry's lip and he opened his mouth, gladly allowing the other boy entry. Tom's tongue caressed Harry's, slowly and sensually, and Harry melted into his arms. He moved his tongue too, returning the caress and the pleasure until both boys broke apart, gasping for air. Tom looked into Harry's eyes with hunger and desire, love swirling behind them and creating a beautiful pattern of emotions, clear for Harry to see.

"Come back to my room Hart. Let me show you my love." The words sent shivers down Harry's spine, whispered as they were in Tom's low voice, made husky by kissing. He dearly wanted to concede to Tom's offer and go to his rooms, but he knew hewasn't ready.

"I...I can't, Tom. I'm not ready. Please...understand?" Harry said, looking into Tom's eyes and trying to convey his thoughts through his eyes. Tom seemed to read his emotions because he smiled, though disappointed. He kissed Harry on the forehead and Harry felt a tingle go through him from the spot where he'd kissed.

"It's okay Hart. I understand. I love you, don't worry." There was a knock on the door and Azul's voice, apparently talking to Vlad.

"What the hell are they doing in there? I need to get my hair gel, there's a tufty bit at the back! Quick, someone might _see_!"

Harry laughed softly and Tom smiled. "You can always trust Azul to be Azul, can't you." He said. "I'll leave before he gets too aggravated." Harry smiled and nodded and they entangled themselves from each others arms. Tom was on his way to the door when he looked back and considered something for a moment. "One more thing, Hart." He said, and smiled a debonair grin, which was frighteningly similar to Azul's.

"Will you go to the dance with me?"

Author's Notes: Now then I know that right now you guys are all throwing things at the screen saying stuff like "Slash! You promised us slash! You call that slash? Do you?" I don't. I am truly sorry but the damn characters wouldn't consent to my fantasy ofdoing it right there in the chamber. Tom was being prissy and wanted to declare his undying love for Harry first, and he was threatening me with witholding my filming rights over his and Harry's sex scene, which definitely will be in the next chapter. Reading the confessions back, they sound too soppy to me. What do you guys think. Review and tell me!


	6. Dance it All Away

**Author:** Silverhair Theory

**Rating: **M

**Disclaimer: **I nothing. JKRowling owns everything. If you prosecute me all you're likely to get is my sweet stash and my teddy bear, so I wouldn't advise it.

**THE GIFT OF A SECOND CHANCE**

Author's Notes: Yes, I know i dont usually put A/N at the beginning of a chap but I have used some quotes from J.K.Rowling's Harry Potter series in this chap and I would like to make it clear that I do not claim them to be my own in any way. And without further ado, the chapter!

_Chapter 5: Dance it All Away_

The next day Tom woke up with a smile on his face and a raging hard on under the covers. He had just had his first ever wet dream, and Merlin, had it been glorious. Reaching for himself he imagined Hart's face creasing in ecstasy as Tom brought him to peak with his hand, and imagined it was Hart's cock he was wrapping his fingers around, Hart's quick breathing he could hear and Hart's groan as he spilled onto the sheets.

Grinning and feeling uncharacteristically happy he reached for his wand and cleaned the covers. He dressed quickly and left for the great hall, not craving coffee quite as much as he usually did. Those at breakfast noticed the change in him and Azul enquired as to why he had such a massive grin on his face. Tom lessened the brightness of his smile but he could tell that the others were unnerved.

Hart and Vlad came to breakfast late. They were talking as they approached the table and when they both caught his eye Hart smiled uncertainly and Vlad gave Tom a nod. Tom smiled back at them as they sat down.

The classes that day were almost in uproar. No one was concentrating on the lessons in the slightest and many teachers contentedly read books or did marking at their desks and let the pupils do what they liked. It wasn't that they didn't want to teach, it was just that they knew they wouldn't be able to control the children with very little on their minds apart from the dance that evening and the holidays the next day.

Tom became steadily less happy as the day drew on. His euphoria from breakfast faded away as the thoughts of what tonight would bring began to eat at his mind. Tonight was absolutely crucial, months of planning had gone into this and however much he wanted to dance with Hart at the ball, the Horcrux was more important. There was no way he was going to jeopardise this plan, even if he did love Hart. This was more important.

When they went to lunch the Hall was already beginning to be decorated, with a couple of the teachers spelling tinsel and paper chains to hang among the usual candles, specially charmed so they wouldn't catch fire. Tom knew they were leaving most of the decorating until after lessons, so that the hall would look spectacular when they entered at 8:00 when the dance officially began.

The afternoon lessons were just like the morning ones so at half past four the Slytherin seventh years all poured out of the transfiguration classroom rejoicing in the fact that the day was over. Tom and the others went to the Slytherin common room and lounged around enjoying the fact that tomorrow was the end of term. Tom, however, could feel the tension building in his chest as it had been doing all day. Hart was just a few metres away from him, laughing, and that wasn't helping his tension any either.

Around half past five all the Slytherin girls disappeared into their dormitories and the boys had a good laugh at that, joking about how the girls needed two and a half hours to prepare for the dance. When Azul left them at half past six they laughed even more. The laughing was good for Tom, releasing some of the tension, and no one could deny that it was just funny watching how much Azul was like a girl in the way he acted. The boys started drifting off to their dormitories between seven o'clock and half seven, Tom being one of the last to leave. He made his way up to the Head Boy dorms and took down the robes he'd been saving for this occasion.

They were midnight black, for camouflage in the dark night. Tom wished now that he'd bought something nicer to wear with Hart but he hadn't thought that he would have a date. Nevertheless, the robes did swirl nicely around him and Tom used a spell to make the edges ragged and then another to make them flutter in an otherworldly breeze. He put them on and looked at himself in the full-length mirror.

It wasn't enough, really. Although the robes now looked suitably atmospheric they were just robes, and he was sure there was something else he could do. Vaguely he wished for Azul, with his keen fashion sense, who would be able to turn the robes into something stylish and sophisticated. He used a glamour for his eyes to turn them different colours and liked the effect of the red. Then he used another glamour to whiten his skin so that it was as pale as snow. Yet another glamour had his hair gone, which made him look strange and unpleasant, but it was the right look for the rest of his outfit.

Studying his reflection, he didn't feel quite right yet. He made his fingernails into claws and turned them black but that wasn't enough. Struck by a sudden thought he found the book about Salazar Slytherin and looked for the moving picture of him that was enchanted so that only the line of Slytherin could see it. He studied the picture then looked up and made the changes required.

Casting a pretty complicated glamour he changed his face so that he had a lipless mouth and slitted nose, like a snake's, and he added a forked tongue for good measure. Now, looking at himself in the mirror he had to admit he was a pretty terrifying sight. Pulling his hood up, he greatly resembled the picture of Salazar Slytherin and he smiled at his mirror image.

Then he remembered about Hart. What if Hart was scared, what if he didn't like the way Tom looked now? Tom frowned and suddenly had a thought. He spent about ten minutes looking through the section of his library, which he rarely touched, trying to find the section on beauty spells. He had many books, which he simply found pointless, and kept them away from the others as though afraid they might leak their uselessness.

He found the book he was looking for, _Beauty and Romance Charms for the Teenage Soul._ The leather was a disgusting shade of deep pink and the pages were tinted pink and were rose scented. The book had been part of a Daily Prophet giveaway and although Tom despised the colour scheme he had never been one to turn down knowledge, however mundane and trivial it seemed. Now he thanked the part of him that had made him keep the book.

He flicked through the book, trying not to breathe in the cloying perfume of the roses. He found the spell he wanted, a charm to make the recipient 'shine with an inner light, radiate beauty and loveliness and procure an aura of desireablility to those they choose.' Tom's interpretation of this was that it would make him appear beautiful, however ugly he looked in practice.

He cast the spell and went to look in the mirror again. To his eyes, he could only see a slight difference, but he supposed that it must be more effective on others. At least his mind seemed to be more open to the beauties of the outfit now. He looked at the clock. Ten to eight. Hart and the others would be here soon.

"Azul, what on earth are they?" Rupert said. They were in the Slytherin boys' dormitory and Rupert had just seen Azul come out of the bathroom with his bright blue tinted sunglasses on.

"They're sunglasses Rup'. Muggle things. Normally I wouldn't associate with anything Muggle, but I have to admit they know how to make accessories." Azul had spent the past hour or so in the bathroom, apparently washing his hair. It was still wet at the moment but he had assured them that it would look fabulous when it was done.

Harry had dug out the clothes that Azul had made him buy in Hogsmeade. Putting them on, for the first time, as he hadn't had a chance to in the shop, he realised they were uncomfortably tight. Once they were on he dashed into the bathroom and shut the door, turning to look in the full-length mirror, and his mouth dropped open.

He looked hot. There was very little else to say. The trousers were made of sleek black leather that clung to the skin and accentuated the curve of his legs. The big black boots came up to the top of his calf and were also black leather. His top was a strange material that could only be wizard-made, looking like leather but feeling and hanging like silk, with red trimmings along the very low neckline, which showed off most of his chest. From the back of the shirt sprouted black leathery bat wings which flapped of their own accord, creating just enough wind to lift Harry's hair slightly. Struck by a sudden thought, Harry used wand less magic to put red streaks in his hair, the same colour as the trimmings. Some eyeliner, which he stole off of Azul, finished up the look. Looking again at himself, he grinned. He guaranteed people would be looking at him tonight.

Opening the door, he walked out and all eyes in the room turned to him. Rupert's mouth dropped open, Vlad's eyes went wide and Azul was visibly holding himself back from jumping Harry's bones. "Sweet mother of Merlin, Hart. You look... delicious!" Azul was almost drooling and his hands were twitching.

Azul was a pretty sweet sight too. On his feet were white leather shoes, which if Harry wasn't mistaken were stilettos. His white silk trousers fell over the top of them; sleek and making Azul's legs look longer than they actually were. He had a white long-sleeved shirt on which had the bottom two and the top three buttons undone, showing off his perfectly toned stomach and chest. Out of the back, like Harry's, were wings, but Azul's were blue tinted angel wings, which dropped sparkling feathers that disappeared, when they hit the floor. Azul's hair was apparently charmed to shine like the sun and it was a beautiful golden colour, quite unlike the usual Malfoy platinum, and more in the realms of what Harry considered 'Narcissa blonde'. It hung perfectly straight over Azul's shoulders and behind his back, parted at the side so one mercury eye was half obscured. On Azul's head were the blue tinted sunglasses that matched the wings. Azul looked like a modern angel, beautiful.

Harry turned to look at Vlad, to see what the vampire had decided to wear. Vlad was wearing black jeans, which hung to the floor, but Harry could see black slip on shoes underneath. The jeans had silver rings and chain festooned on them, just like the jacket, which was leather, and done right up to the neck. Vlad had apparently let the spells on his skin go down because his skin was the perfect snow-white again, contrasting starkly with the clothes and his hair, which he had lengthened down to mid-back. As Harry watched, Azul converged on Vlad holding a string of Muggle Christmas tree lights and wrapping them round Azul's head like some bizarre tiara or crown. Vlad tried to pull them out but Azul scolded him and cast an attachment charm to make them impossible to remove.

Laughing, Harry looked round for Rupert but he had already left. The three boys left together to go down to meet Tom outside his suite. Harry was slightly apprehensive, but only slightly. They reached Tom's door and Azul knocked. The door was opened and Harry jumped about three feet in the air and stepped backwards, reaching for his wand and realising too late he had left it in the dormitory.

"Nice outfit Tom. Pretty effective, looks like you scared the balls off of Hart at least." Azul laughed and Harry took a second look at the being in the doorway of Tom's rooms. At first glance it was unmistakably Voldemort, in fact at second and third glance it was too. But when Harry looked for the signs they were there; the puzzled expression that the Voldemort he knew would never wear, the way the skin, although white, was smooth and youthful rather than mottled like Harry knew it. Forcing his body to relax he gave Azul a sheepish half-grin and smiled at the Voldemort-who-was-Tom.

They walked down to the great hall in a group and as they entered Harry gave a gasp and heard Azul do the same beside him. The hall had been transformed and if he hadn't just walked through the doors he would have sworn it was not the same room.

The ceiling was, as usual, charmed to show the night sky but Harry had to wonder if it had a special spell on it tonight because every star was clear, bright and sparkling. However, not only was the ceiling filled with stars, so were the walls and the floor, all with the same bright stars all over them, like the charm on the ceiling had been stretched to cover the whole room. The windows were covered by the spell so it was like the room was a pocket in space, surreal. There were even 'stars' floating around the room, replacing the candles and bathing everyone in starlight. The teachers' table had been turned into an asteroid field with each asteroid holding a plate of food, making it like a buffet. The main section of the hall was the dance floor, with reflections of galaxies, which were charmed to follow the dancer's footsteps as they moved around. At the edge of the star field was a rose coloured nebula on which was standing the band, who all wore robes and face paint that were charmed the same way as the walls and floor to show the stars, meaning that it appeared that the eyes of the people were making the music. The band had obviously cast spells to make their eyes burn like miniature suns, because they were a deep, rich gold. Along the edge of the hall there were little clusters of space-cloud, which were apparently chairs.

Azul spotted his dates almost as soon as he entered. He had eventually decided on taking both his favourite boyfriend _and_ his favourite girlfriend, and it was only the fact that Vivian had been asked out and gone with her crush that he wasn't taking them too. Harry had asked who the two people were during some lesson and worked out that the girl was indeed Lavender Brown's grandmother and the boy was Dean Thomas' grandfather. They spotted Vivian dancing with Lufi Zabini, who were dressed as princess and knight, and saw Pearl, Jerry, Rupert and Rupert's date, apparently Ernie Macmillan's grandmother, who were dressed as an Egyptian princess, a 16th century poet, a dragon and a female knight respectively.

Harry, Tom and Vlad went to sit over by them and Tom was soon engaging them in conversation. Vlad secluded himself in a corner and Harry was watching Tom.

He was sure that something was different about this version of the Voldemort he had seen. Apart from the differences he'd noticed earlier this Voldemort seemed somehow more...acceptable almost. Once he got over the shock of seeing Voldemort chatting with then various other characters at the table he had to admit that it that suited Tom. He could pull off the scary look well, and now that he wasn't quaking in fear of the figure in front of him he could really study the man. It was impossible to think of Tom as anything other than a man when he was dressed like this.

Harry felt himself wishing to run his fingers over the snow-white skin, to see if it was as soft as it was when it was normal, to see if it was cold like a snake's or warm like a human's. He surprised himself by still wanting to kiss Tom, admittedly partly to see if it felt as good when one partner had no lips, but he still also felt desire towards the creature in front if him. He wanted to see if Tom's skin was more sensitive when it was white, or what it would feel like to have that skin on his own, if it would feel different. He wanted to open his eyes and see red orbs glowing back at him filled with the same lust he saw in his dreams.

Worried and slightly disturbed by the feelings, he made his way over to the buffet asteroid belt to get some alcohol. He thought that there probably wasn't meant to be alcohol there but it was just discreetly nestled in among the bat cookies and cheesy wands. He had a suspicion that a student, possibly one of this generation's weasley twins, had planted the supply. It was good alcohol anyway, Firewhisky.

Tom watched Hart getting something from the buffet. He had been subconsciously watching the boy for the past half an hour, ever since they had left his rooms. To tell the truth, he had been quite startled when Hart had had such a violent reaction to his outfit. Sure he was scary, but surely not that terrifying? Also, neither Vlad nor Azul had been affected even a quarter as much. It was like Hart had seen a creature from his nightmares or something. Another thing was that even after Azul had pointed out that it was Tom, Hart still had to force himself to relax, Tom saw him.

Still, once he had relaxed and they had headed down to the hall, Tom had noticed Hart's clothing. Merlin, it should be illegal to look that hot. The leather trousers showed off Hart's ass to great advantage and Tom had to hold himself back from feeling the boy up where he stood. _Later, _he promised himself. Hart's hair was pretty stunning too, the blood-red streaks shining under the fake starlight in the hall to give Hart a faintly demonic look.

He felt Hart's gaze on him when he was talking to Jerry and Rupert and was just about to turn and talk to him when he was suddenly gone, over getting food or something. While he was turned away Pearl dragged Jerry onto the star field dance floor, Rupert carrying his lady knight onto the floor as well maiden style. Tom watched them dancing for a while and waited for Hart to come back. When he didn't, he looked over at the buffet to see the boy drinking deeply from the Firewhisky goblet.

He got up, walking silently over to behind Hart, admiring his ass as he went. He held his breath and stepped up close, until there was half a centimetre between their bodies. He leaned forward and whispered in Parseltongue into the other boy's ear. Azul had once heard him curse in Parseltongue and had sworn it was the sexiest thing he'd ever heard.

_$ You look perfectly delicious in that outfit $ _He smirked when Hart jumped and looked over his shoulder into his eyes. For a second there was the terrible, blinding fear again and then a slow smile spread over the other boy's face.

_$ That's what Azul said too $_ Now it was Tom's turn to jump. Hearing Hart speak in Parseltongue was a shock, he had thought he was the only one with that power. The sibilant hisses and half-snarls that made up the snake language sounded incredibly sexy coming out of someone else's mouth as he'd never heard it before, the low tone that Hart had spoken in making it even more so.

_$ You speak Parseltongue? $_

_$ Evidently so $ _Tom could hear the smirk in Hart's voice and they smiled at each other. Tom was struck by a thought.

_$ I suppose that's how you got into the Chamber of Secrets? You followed me and copied the words? $ _Hart smiled again, not so wide this time.

_$ Not quite $_ Tom was puzzled, but decided to let it go. Evidently it was another one of those little mysteries about Hart that he would never solve. He really would have to get the answers off the boy some time.

Suddenly Tom hid an evil smirk as he had a rather tasty thought. Running his hand down Hart's side, who he was still standing behind, he felt elation as the boy shivered and relaxed back into his embrace. He wrapped his arms around the boy and sneakily put one hand up the boy's top. Hart shivered again and turned in Tom's embrace so he was facing Tom. Tom's hand was still up Hart's shirt but now the other one was poised over Hart's ass, which he wasted no time in feeling up. Hart gasped and blushed, eyes closing in ecstasy and Tom leaning close and whispered in his most seductive low voice _$ Want to dance, beautiful? $ _Hart blushed again and leaned in so that his lips brushed Tom's ear, making him shiver as well.

_$ ...I thought you'd never ask $_ Hart smirked at Tom and Tom felt a thrill as he took Hart by both hands and led him out onto the star field. Just as they reached the floor the gold eyes changed song to a sweet slow one. Tom put his arms around Hart's waist, holding him close and Hart put his arms around Tom's neck. The singer crooned out the words of the melody and Hart closed his eyes, putting his head on Tom's shoulder, letting the music wash over them both. Tom kissed the top of Hart's head and they danced together, among the stars. There truly was nobody else in the room but them, Hart was the best thing in the world to hold in his arms and nothing else mattered but the fact that he was kissing lightly up Tom's neck, his head hidden by all the hair.

Hart stopped his attentions and looked up at Tom with laughter in his eyes at Tom's flushed state. Tom didn't care that a couple of people were giving them weird looks on account of being two guys, nobody would recognise them dressed like this, and he didn't care that Azul was staring at the two of them with an open mouth, completely ignoring his partners. Hart noticed too and laughed slightly before whispering in Parseltongue. _$ Do you think we ought to go outside before Azul makes even more of a fool out of himself in front of his dates? $ _

Tom smiled and nodded, letting himself be led out of the hall, through the knot of people to the doors and out into the grounds. The area around the herbology greenhouses had been turned into a miniature rosebush garden, with archways and high hedges. Hart found them a secluded spot, which was open to the sky and pulled Tom down until they were both lying down, staring at the stars. Hart lay next to Tom and relaxed into his arms. The caress of the scent of roses surrounded them and they just lay in each other's arms, watching the real stars and listening to the beautiful music that was being played by fairies sitting in the bushes.

Sighing, Tom sat up. Now was, unfortunately, the optimal time to release the creature for the plan and if he executed it just right then he should be able to keep Hart occupied enough that he would help without question. _$ Stay here, beautiful. I'm just going to get something, I'm coming right back. $_ He smiled at Hart who smiled back and lay back down with his hands behind his head.

The gamekeepers hut was shrouded in shadows, the light in the window flickering and faint. Tom ran swiftly over to the massive crates that held the creatures they studied in class. He surveyed them for a moment then dismissed them; none were big enough. Out of the corner of his eye he saw a black shape sneaking into the forest. He followed it quietly and realised it was the gamekeeper boy, Rubeus Hagrid. Intrigued, he followed the boy further and further into the forest.

As they went deeper, Tom started to feel a little confused. What was Hagrid doing out here, alone and unarmed? He was even more shocked when, seemingly out of nowhere, an enormous spider, about three times the size of a person, dropped from the canopy right in front of the other boy. However, to his astonishment, Hagrid seemed quite content with the spider being there. He patted it on the head and pulled something from his pocket and gave it to the spider to eat.

The spider eagerly gobbled up whatever it was and suddenly twitched, looking around before waving a leg in the air. To Tom's horror it pointed it at the bush behind which he was hiding and Hagrid turned around to look. "Hello? Who's there?" Tom didn't answer. Hagrid frowned and the spider growled something low in its throat. Hagrid was close enough to hear and he nodded, stepping backwards. Before Tom knew it the spider had dropped fully to the ground and was striding towards him.

He turned heel and ran, fast, without looking back. He regretted it almost immediately because the second he started running the spider did too, crashing through the undergrowth and nearly knocking trees over in its haste to catch him. Behind his he could hear the roars of Hagrid, he was apparently running this way too. But then the spider let out a weird clicking snarl and he forgot about Hagrid.

He ran all the way to the gamekeepers hut, on the edge of the forest. The spider didn't look like it was slowing down so he vaulted over the fence into the pumpkin patch and crouched down among the largest leafiest plants, praying the spider wouldn't run that way. the crashing that signified the destruction in the spiders wake stopped and the headed off in another direction, towards the Quidditch fields. Tom waited until he couldn't see it any more and then got up slowly, just in time to see Hagrid burst out of the forest too, panting and chasing after the spider.

Tom was going to go back and look for more animals but then he realised that he didn't need too. The spider looked well able to kill someone and all he needed to do now was wait until it did. Then would come the time for the plan to be put into action. He made his way back across the grounds to the gardens were, where Hart was waiting for him.

He snuck back into the archways of the bushes, towards the little section, which belonged to them. He was about to enter the clearing when he heard a strange voice, one he didn't expect to hear out here, and one, which seemed very different to the one he knew.

_" What was that?"_ He stepped forward a couple of paces and to his surprise saw Hart lying propped up on his hands, looking up with an expression of terror on his face. Above him was a patch of air that wasn't like the rest. It shimmered like air above a hot surface on a hot day but there was actually a picture formed in the shimmers, of a dark cave lit by a green glow. Tom stood, motionless by the bush, not entering the garden, watching the figures in the picture, too blurry to make out, as they stood at the edge of the cave. The ground in front of them was even more shimmery that the rest and it took Tom a moment to work out that they were standing in front of water.

_"Something, I think, that is ready to respond should we attempt to seize the Horcrux."_ He started a little at that. Again, the voice was similar but he couldn't place it. The fact that the figure had mentioned Horcruxes was enough to interest him. He glanced at Hart and faintly wondered if he was causing this strange occurrence. Then the figures in the air started to speak again.

_"Did you think that would happen, sir?"_

_"I thought _something _would happen if we made an obvious attempt to get our hands on the Horcrux. That was a very good idea, Harry; much the simplest way of finding out what we are facing."_

As the figures spoke, Tom was racking his memories, trying to remember where he'd heard the voices before. Both were familiar, he knew it, but he couldn't figure out their owners. Eventually the figures moved out of the circle of colour and the vision dissipated, fizzling out into nothingness again as if it had never been.

Slowly, he stepped forward, into the clearing. Hart's heard snapped round at the noise and there was a tense silence in which they looked at each other. It had to be obvious that Tom had seen the vision, and Tom wanted to know what it was, and why it was possible. The stare was broken by a scream that split the night and a low roar that Tom recognised as Hagrid. Hart seemed to recognise it too because in a second they were both sprinting out of the gardens and across the grounds the base of the Quidditch pitch, which was where the scream had come from.

Next to the Quidditch pitch were three people and the massive spider. The spider was attacking the girl on the floor, she was unconscious and the only thing preventing her from getting mauled and eaten was Hadrid on its back, pulling its head away from her. There was a boy darting around, trying to get to the girl, evidently they were a couple.

The spider lunged particularly violently and Hagrid pulled hard on its head, scratching its skin and scraping over one of its many eyes. It gave a harsh scream and left the girl, trying to buck Hagrid off of its back so it could get him. He yelled and held on tight to the spiny fur on its back, but only succeeded in angering it more.

"Calm down, yeh great lummox! I'm sorry, I didn't mean to hurt yeh!" Hagrid cried in his distinctive yell and Tom heard Hart gasp at his side. He looked round and saw Hart mouth something like 'Hagrid' before running towards the spider. The couple, who had been comforting each other, looked up and saw them. Blanching as Tom was still in his scary outfit, they scrabbled away and managed to get up off of the ground. They took off without looking back, and Tom felt sure they would not return.

He ran forward also, to where Hart was standing a few feet from the writing beast and boy, firing off spells at the monster. The spider roared and actually reared up on its back legs, throwing Hagrid to the ground. It turned and pounced on him, Tom could see its jaws with their huge pincers closing in on the terrified boy's head, he readied the spell...

Then let it go as he saw Hart leap at the monster, physically colliding with it and blasting it with his wand. Some of the jets of energy went right through the spider and exploded out the other side in a shower of black hair and blood. It screamed again and staggered back, leaving Hagrid sprawled on the floor. Hart pushed the spider further away from the body of the boy, and Tom stepped forward quickly. If Hagrid was dead, the body would need to be prepared quickly, and if he was dying then that was also well and good.

It was only when he stepped closer and saw the pulse, flickering but clear, in the boy's throat, and heard the shallow breathing that meant he was unconscious, that he almost cursed Hart. The boy was still alive, and he couldn't just finish him off right hear because Hart would know. Thinking of Hart, he looked up.

Hart was drenched in the creature's blood, black in the moonlight. As Tom watched he plunged his wand into the stomach of the beast, all the way up to the hilt, then yelled off an exploding hex. The spider convulsed and screamed one final time before collapsing in a heap on the floor, twitching and convulsing before going still.

Hart was breathing heavily and his hair, clothes and arms were spattered liberally with blood. It was running down his wand hand and arm from where he'd stabbed the spider with his wand. He looked up at Tom and Tom saw the fading fire in his eyes as he came down from a massive adrenaline high. He seemed surprised to see Tom scowling at him.

"What are you grimacing about?" He said, frowning.

"You killed it! Why did you kill it?" Tom said angrily. He was aware that he was losing his cool but he couldn't help it. He had been planning this for months, dammit, and Hart had just gone and ruined everything! He could see Hart getting angry too.

"What, you wanted me to leave it fighting Hagrid? Even he can't fight off a thing like that! You must be mad to think I'd let it kill him, and then you ask me why I did it? It would have killed him!"

Tom opened his mouth to say something and then shut it again. He couldn't just tell Hart the truth, that he had actually wanted Hagrid dead, not when Hart was so obviously opposed to the idea. Hart was scowling too now.

"You wanted it to kill him, didn't you? Why do you hate him so much? He's never done anything to you, and what have you done to him? You framed him about the chamber of secrets, when all he was trying to do was keep Aragog safe! You got him expelled and the only reason he's here is because of Dumbledore. Now you're all set to let him die right in front of you! What has he done to you?"

Hart was panting, stiff with anger and out of his breath from shouting. He seemed to have realised he had maybe said too much. Tom was standing with his mouth open, staring at Hart. It was terribly undignified and not something he did on a regular basis. How in Merlin's name had Hart known about Hagrid and the chamber of secrets? Nobody knew about that, not even the meddling old fool Dumbledore! And Hart hadn't even been attending Hogwarts when it happened!

"What..." He started but Hart didn't wait for him to finish speaking.

"Oh, shut up." He said as he rushed Tom and kissed him full on the mouth, plunging his tongue into his mouth before Tom could say another word. The force was such that Tom was knocked over backwards and it was a few seconds before Tom got over the shock and started heatedly kissing back.

It was very odd to kiss when one of the participants had no lips, but it didn't stop either young man for long. Tom felt all thoughts wipe from his mind and was pretty sure that the Hart must have felt the same because he suddenly relaxed into Tom's arms, where he had been half stiff before, as if he was unsure of whether he wanted to be kissing Tom or not. Tom pushed all his questions of the raven-haired youth from his own mind, though they threatened to resurface. He didn't want to be questioning Hart when he was doing such amazing things with his tongue.

Tom wrapped his arms around the boy on top of him, moving them from where they'd been lying useless on the floor. Moving suddenly he rolled and suddenly Hart was underneath him and Tom had control. Hart broke away and gasped, his eyes flickering open. Tom stared entranced as the unfocused chocolate orbs were revealed, and the slivers of green that shot through the brown amazed him, seeming to become more pronounced as Tom watched them. They sparkled and almost seemed to glow, much more vivid that the milk chocolate of the rest of Hart's eyes.

Suddenly the eyes focused on him and for a second Hart's face creased into unimaginable terror. The boy stiffened completely and a terrified gasp came from him mouth. "Hart...?" He said, and something flickered and disappeared behind Hart's eyes as he became a little less stiff.

"N...nothing." He said, turning his head away. Tom felt indescribably sad, he shouldn't have dressed like this, it was scaring Hart too much. But then Hart spoke again. "You...you look so amazing. I've never had anyone look at me like that before. And... You're so beautiful...I don't deserve someone as beautiful as you..."

Tom smiled sadly. What had Hart gone through that had made him so negative about himself? "Don't say that, Hart." He said. "If anyone is undeserving, it's me. You are very beautiful, far too beautiful for me." Hart smiled slightly, and looked up at Tom again. Again the brilliance of the green slivers in his eyes enthralled Tom.

Hart reached up with one hand and ran it down the side of Tom's face, making him shiver. He slipped it into Tom's hood and pushed it back so that his hairless skull was revealed. Tom hung his head, knowing it was very ugly. Even the beautifying charm couldn't hide his hairless head. Then he felt Hart stroking his skin, down the back of his head and the bumps of his spine, making him shiver again.

"Hart, what are you doing? He said, and Hart smiled.

"You look just like a snake." He said, his hands still stroking the skin lightly and softly. "A proper snake. It's rather fitting, I suppose, considering the way you've always pushed everyone away." He smiled and ran soft fingers over the skin at the base of Tom's neck. The ghost-like touch was cool and ticklish, and Tom shivered yet again.

Hart sighed. "You think you're ugly, don't you? That's why you have the charm on." Tom opened his eyes from where they'd been lulling shut from the stroking. How did Hart know about that? With a shock he felt Hart reaching into his aura and pulling out the beauty spell, cancelling it. He jerked backwards, trying to hide his face, as he knew he was now ugly. He felt Hart holding him down and changed tactics, hiding his face it Hart's shirt instead, breathing in the smell that was purely Hart, probably for the last time before he saw how ugly Tom was.

"Tom..." There was a laugh in Hart's voice but a sincerity that made Tom reluctantly acquiesce to the finger lifting his face up. He hesitantly looked into Hart's eyes and was surprised to see love shining back at him, growing brighter as Hart smiled. "You think you're ugly, don't you? You think I wouldn't love you if you weren't beautiful?" Tom hung his head in shame.

Hart sat up and Tom moved back, ready to move away. Hart's hands held him fast, and one hand reached up to cup his face, pulling it closer. "I would love you Tom, whether you were beautiful or not." He used the other hand, the one not caressing Tom's face, to lightly brush his throat and slipped down his chest, pulling the robe open as he went. Hart looked down at Tom's bare chest and the hand brushing the skin lightly, making Tom look too.

"You are very beautiful, Tom Riddle. Even if I'm the only one who can see it." Tom barely had time to process the words before Hart's mouth was on his, not demanding this time but tender and full of love. Tom slowly kissed back, running his tongue along Hart's lips and slipping it into his mouth as Hart opened his mouth in welcome.

Slowly, tenderly, he pushed the slightly smaller boy onto his back and slowly ran his hand down Hart's chest, popping open the shirt in the same way Hart had done to him. He was delighted to find Hart shivering the same way he had done and he moved his mouth from Hart's mouth to his neck, kissing the skin lightly.

Hart opened his eyes and Tom looked, really looked deep into his perfect eyes with the beautiful green slivers shooting through the brown. The heart that he could have sworn had frozen over years ago contracted at the undercurrent of pain and suffering that glowed faintly in Hart's eyes. _'I want to find whoever hurt you and may them pay, I'll kill them for what they've done to you.' _He thought viciously.

Hart seemed to notice the lust in his eyes being swallowed the protectiveness and swallowed, averting his eyes that were so expressive. Tom figured he was probably cursing his eyes, and wanted to cut off all such negative thoughts. Leaning down he kissed the bared throat before biting down. Hart moaned and tipped his head further back to give Tom better access. Grinning at the offering, Tom continued it ministrations, biting and sucking, revelling in the moans and gasps that came from Hart's lips.

When he put his mouth onto those perfect lips Hart's tongue met his immediately and they entwined and summoned the heat emanating from each other's bodies as fuel for their inner fires for each other. His hands traversed the plain of Hart's chest and one hand pinched and stroked a nipple which the other continued further down and played around the skin at the base of the chest, where the leather trousers obscured further passage.

The trousers were ingeniously buttoned, they had a single black button in the shape of a dragons head, slipped through a loop of material. It was a simple matter for Tom's pale slim fingers to slip it open and suddenly Hart groaned as his hardness was released. Tom grinned into Hart's mouth and brushed a finger across the material beneath the leather trousers, which appeared to be black silk boxers.

Hart moaned again and broke the kiss, gasping for air. "Tom...please...don't stop..." Tom smirked and slid the trousers down to Hart's knees, deftly removing them and his shoes in one go, while the other hand stopped its attentions on Hart's chest and tore Hart's shirt off, ripping in away from his body and throwing it aside. Hart gasped again and Tom recaptured the lips already swollen from kissing.

Caressing Hart's sides he dragged his fingers and nails down Hart's chest, scratching the skin, barely able to conceal his moan as Hart's body convulsed and Hart moaned. "Oh Merlin, Tom...more...harder..." Tom obeyed and dragged his nails, claws really, down Hart's chest again, digging in and pushing so hard that they drew blood and ten red lines etched themselves across Hart's skin.

Hart moaned again and it was one of the most beautiful sights Tom had ever seen. His Hart, lying underneath Tom with his eyes closed, hands clenched in ecstasy and Tom's marks all over his chest. With painful slowness Tom bent and licked across Hart's chest, tasting his blood and making Hart moan again.

His questing tongue ran over something that wasn't a scratch and he pulled his head back and looked down at the skin. It was unmarked, but when he ran his hand over the creamy surface he could feel something there, even though he couldn't see it. Reaching into Hart's aura, he found traces of a concealment spell on him too.

"Why do you have a concealment spell on, Hart? What are you hiding?" Hart's eyes snapped open and he looked guiltily up at Tom.

"I..I'm not beautiful, Tom. Not like you think I am. I didn't want you to see..." He closed his eyes and Tom felt the spell dissolving. He gasped as he saw as Hart's chest revealed its true appearance.

The whole surface was marred by every kind of injury. Horrific burns covered the area over his left side and what looked like millions of tiny needle pricks were literally covering his right. Across his stomach was a variety of cuts, both deep and shallow, terrible scratches and bruises, including one serious bruise that traversed the width of his chest in one place and was a horrible mix of purple, yellow and green. Around Hart's neck were old ligatures where fingers had gripped his neck and tried to strangle him. At the tip of each of the finger marks was a bright white scar, a contrast with the dark marks of the ligatures, evidence that at some point the person who had strangled his had punctured the skin, and by the looks of the scars they had been sizable fingernails - or claws.

Tom felt anger well up in the depth of his throat. He growled and his eyes narrowed. He cursed quite colourfully in Parsel Tongue and his hands gripped Hart tightly as he imagined the pain and torture he would like to inflict on the person who had hurt Hart like this.

"You see?" Hart said quietly. "I'm ugly. Ruined."

Tom growled again and Hart shrunk away from him but Tom pulled Hart close to him and breathed in the scent of his black hair. "No." He bit out. "You are not ugly, not ruined, and you are still more beautiful than anything I've ever seen. And never you dare say or think otherwise."

He kissed Hart and bit down of Hart's lip, drawing blood and making Hart gasp and kiss back passionately. Breaking the kiss he looked down at Hart with his glazed eyes and the mouth red with blood and swollen lips. He bent back down and kissed a trail down his neck, over the terrible handprints, biting and nipping the skin, trying to replace them with his own marks instead of the pain of another.

He licked and bit his way down Hart's skin, all the way down the chest to the line where boxers and skin clashed. He hooked one black claw round the waistline of the silk and pulled them down slowly, teasingly. Hart's breathing was quickening and becoming shorter, shallower. Tom pulled the boxers right off and stared at Harry. He was beautiful.

With one clawed hand he stroked the tip of Harry's member, glistening with pre-cum. Harry whimpered and Tom smirked. He put one hand up and Hart took a clawed finger into his mouth, sucking on it. Tom's already hard cock strained in his pants and begged for release as Hart's tongue caressed his finger.

He reached for Hart's cock with his other hand and ran a claw up and down the length of it, making Hart shiver and moan in anticipation. Tom was careful not to put to much pressure on because he had a feeling that Hart was so close to release already that he wasn't going to be able to last much longer.

Hart opened his mouth again and spoke, his voice harsh with lust and pent up arousal. "Stop teasing...I need it...Tom..." Tom's breathing was shallow and quick now as well and as Hart took his finger in his mouth again and gave it a hard suck he couldn't stop his hand from wrapping itself around Harry and giving a hard but sensual stroke.

With a cry Hart spilled onto Tom's hand. Tom had been right; he had been so aroused it taken just that tiny little bit to push him over the edge. Hart's body convulsed and then relaxed as his eyes closed and he went as limp as jelly.

It was in this silence that Tom heard the rustle of bushes as someone fled the scene.

He looked up, but all he could see was the dark figure of the person running towards the castle. However, the sheer size of the person alerted him as to who it was. Hagrid had seen them. And then the magnitude of the situation really hit him. Hagrid had _seen _them. And was even now running away, probably to tell the whole castle what he had seen.

With this realisation the whole plan came rushing back to him. The spider. The Horcrux. The diary that even now rested in an inside pocket of his robe, waiting for a spell which now would not be available. Suddenly the world wasn't quite so perfect, the horizon wasn't so bright. What was he going to do?

Urgently, he cast his mind back to the great variety of books that he had in his personal library. He recalled all the books he could think of about Horcruxes, but couldn't think of any way to rectify the situation.

Then from the back of his mind he dredged up a memory of a very old book, one that he'd 'borrowed' from Slughorn's private library. It had been dusty and mostly irrelevant but he could remember one passage about using, instead of objects, humans as the recipients of the Horcrux spell.

He couldn't remember much about the book or the passage but he could remember the incantation. The book had given a lot of warnings and other such things but Tom couldn't remember any important ones.

Why shouldn't he make Hart into a Horcrux? He knew it was probably foolish to invest a portion of his own soul in something as fragile as a human being but he was confident in his abilities to keep Hart alive and by his side. There was something special between them, he could feel it running in their auras, something linking them together that he'd never found in any other person, and he was pretty sure Hart had never felt it either.

"Hart?" He said, softly, seductively. "There's something I want to do, a spell I want to cast on you. May I?" He had to have permission for the spell to be applied, he remembered that much, otherwise the spell wouldn't take. It was a protection for not only the victim but also the caster; an unwilling Horcrux was not much use.

Hart sighed, still in aftermath, and nodded sleepily. He smiled at Tom and Tom got the feeling he was not quite all there, part of him was somewhere else, somewhere far away.

Quickly, he prepared the spell. For such a complicated and dangerous process, it really was extremely simple. It just involved the words of an incantation and for both parties to be willing and the spell took hold. Tom was a little nervous about that part. He vaguely remembered that only a few human Horcruxes had ever been made and they had been actually bonded through spells to the caster beforehand.

He ran the spell over in his mind and then mentally checked to see if there were any people around. There weren't, so he sat back and concentrated. The incantation itself was actually quite long, and it needed to be said just right for it to work.

_"meus animus , _

_meus unus , _

_meus certus secui , _

_reddo mihi asunder quod locus unus dimidium meus pectus pectoris quod animus huic , _

_meus tantum , _

_meus unus , _

_meus animus"_

The spell hung in the air and suddenly there was a great and terrible pain in his chest, a million times worse than heartburn and so powerful that he couldn't even scream, couldn't cry out because his breath was gone, stolen by the pain constricting his chest.

Through eyes slitted in pain he saw a silvery mist flowing out of him, from every pore. It was light as a feather and barely visible, a slight shimmer in the air. It condensed in front of him and formed a ball of the stuff, condensing down until it was tiny and bright as a star. It floated away from Tom and hovered over Hart before suddenly plunging into him with the speed and apparently force of a bullet.

Hart's body literally rocked with its entry, and suddenly his relaxed muscles spasmed and he screamed, higher pitched than anything human Tom had ever heard. It keened away into the night, going on and on until Tom was afraid Hart might suffocate from all the air loss.

Suddenly, as abruptly as it had started, it ended and Hart lay silent and stiff on the ground. For a horrible moment Tom thought he might now be breathing but then as he looked closer he realised that he was in fact breathing so fast it just appeared he was still. He was making quiet moaning and whimpering sounds, and Tom saw that he was scratching at the grass with his fingernails desperately as if trying to escape from some monster in a dream.

Slowly, above Hart's chest, the air shimmered and seemed to part in front of Tom's eyes to form a window in the air. Tom realised that it was another one of the visions, like the one earlier of the people in the cave. This time it was in a long hallway with golden fireplaces off on all sides and huge golden gates at both ends. There was a fountain in the middle and there were fragments of gold metal scattered all over the floor.

There were three people visible through the haze that the vision threw over the scene. One was sprawling on the floor, just a mass of black robes and long straight black hair, but it was being held down by a golden statue of a witch. The other two were the people who had been in the last vision. They were clearer now than they had been before, an old wizard and a younger boy with short black hair.

The picture was still too blurred to make out their faces but even through the film of hazy air Tom could tell there was something wrong with the boy. He was too stiff and his hands were clenched. The boy spoke, but it was with such an unearthly voice that Tom knew it could not possibly be his. It looked like he was possessed by whatever the voice belonged to.

_"Kill me now, Dumbledore..."_ The boy's face twisted in agony and the old man had his wand out, pointing at the boy, but his hand was shaking and his face was bloodless. For a few seconds there was just the rushing of the fountain and the whimpering of the person on the floor, then the boy's body spasmed and the unnatural voice spoke again.

_"If death is nothing, Dumbledore, kill the boy..." _Tom looked again at the old man as it clicked in his mind who it was. Sure enough, the grey hair and impressive beard belonged to a much, much older Dumbledore, whose face hardened as he heard the words and raised his wand.

The creature controlling the boy puppeted the face muscles into an eerie grin that looked more like a grimace. It beckoned with one finger to Dumbledore and the old man shot a spell at the boy, but instead of the killing curse green Tom had expected it was instead a jet of pearly blue-white light a shaft of the brightest sunlight imaginable that flew from the wand and struck the boy full in the chest.

The boy, or the creature controlling the boy, screamed. It writhed and spasmed and then, suddenly, disappeared. The boy's eyes rolled back in his head and he collapsed to the floor. Suddenly, from out of his chest came a smokey black cloud that twisted and twined into the figure of a person. They were clad in black robes that covered their whole body, including face, and it stood facing Dumbledore. When it spoke, its voice had the same unearthly screechy quality that the boy had a few moments before. Tom realised that this was what had been controlling the boy now on the floor.

_"Meddling old fool... You care about the boy too much... I promise you, the next time we meet it will be your end."_ It snarled and apparated over to the person on the floor. Blasting the statue into a million fragments it grabbed the pile of whimpering clothes and hair and turned again to face Dumbledore.

_$ I swear, I will have my revenge, Albus. If not on you then on Harry. $ _He spat in Parseltongue and then shook his head back so that his hood fell down, revealing...

But there the vision stopped. Suddenly the air went dark and then still and Tom was once again in the grounds of Hogwarts with Hart shivering and naked in front of him, unconscious and bonded to Tom in the most intimate way possible.

Hart Peake was his Horcrux.

Tom looked down at the beautiful boy, and spoke his thoughts out loud to the night.

"Who are you, Hart? What have I done?"

Author's Notes: Wow. I wrote this waaaaay quicker than I thought I would. I guess its because my muses waving a massive snake and giving me puppy eyes ( no prizes for guessing who did what ). So ya. I did use quotes from Harry Potter 5 and 6 in this and will be using quotes from the other books in the next chap and I am saying now that I do not claim ownership over any of them. Dont sue me...really. It's pointless. I would also like to confess leaning quite heavily on the amazing fic 'Salir' by Batsutousai. She is a far better writer than I and I hope she doesnt mind me using her story as a base. That fic was probably what inspired me to write this one, actually,so you should all go read it. Now.Hope you enjoyed the chap, leave me a review if you did!


	7. Trouble in My Head

**Author: Silverhair Theory**

**Rating: M**

**Disclaimer: I nothing. JKRowling owns everything. If you prosecute me all you're likely to get is my sweet stash and my teddy bear, so I wouldn't advise it.**

This chapter is dedicated to Mira for the best, longest and most encouraging review I have ever recieved. Thankyou to all you wonderful people who kept up the reviewing! It is thanks to you that this chapter even exists.

Author's Notes: Opens mouth and ducks flying objects I know, I know, its been a stupidly looong time since I updated. I cannot apologise enough. There is an explanation for this chapter's lateness, but I am sure you are eager to read the chapter so I shall put it at the end. Please note - I have put POV change notes in this chapter because although they slightly detract from the story I am fed up on deleting my helpful lines which show switches in character. Also use the disclaimer from the previous chapter as I have once again used quotes from the books. Thankyou all for hanging on so long! Enjoy!

And oh yes, here ye, here ye, THERE IS SMUT IN THIS CHAPTER, yes, I actually buckled down and wrote some. All ye fair or faint of heart, go away or deal with it.

_Chapter 6: Trouble in My Head_

It wasn't very hard for Tom to carry Hart back to his quarters. The boy was light, almost too light, he seemed to weigh practically nothing in Tom's arms. Although unconsious, Hart's face was a constant grimace of pain and he was restless, shifting in Tom's arms as if he was trying to escape some evil in his dreams.

Tom put Hart to sleep on his bed and took the couch. He lay there in the dark trying to focus on the evens of the night but for some reason the only thought that struck him was that he was lying where Hart must have slept only a couple of nights ago, on this very sofa. Turning his head he breathed in the scent of the fabric and sure enough there was the telltale scent that was purely Hart, a blend of honeysuckle, chocolate and a hint of cinnamon. Tom breathed deeply and the scent flooded his senses, sending him into a deep, peaceful sleep.

He was woken from his sleep by a scream, jerked from a mercifully dreamless slumber to a cold, violent dawn with light just beginning to seep in through the green silk curtains. He could hear frantic whimpering and moaning coming from his bedroom and walked over to the doorway.

Hart was curled in foetus position on the bed, looking very small amongst all of the green and black silk. Tom could see the lines of tension in his shaking frame, in his face creased in panic. Stepping close to the bed, Tom put a hand out and put his hand over Hart's forehead, intending to calm the frightened boy down, but the reaction shocked him.

Hart screamed, long and high and grabbed his forehead with both hands, pushing Tom's hand away with the kind of force only the truly terrified ever acheive. Tom stared down at Hart as he whimpered, then at his hand. There was nothing abnormal about the hand, maybe it was Hart's forehead. He was so immersed in his calculation that he failed to notice chocolate eyes flickering open until they were staring up at him in what seemed like fear.

"T...Tom?" Hart whispered and Tom nodded, smiling softly. There was something so precious in the was Hart said his name in that helpless, pleading way. Knowing what the smaller boy wanted he took off his outer robe, which he hadn't bothered removing earlier and laid it aside, lying down on the bed with Hart. It was a squeeze but that just meant that Hart's still naked body was pressed closer to Tom's and he wasn't going to complain in a million years.

He wrapped his arms around Hart's small form and held him close, smiling into the soft back hair as Hart snuggled closer into him, fingers clutching the front of his robes. He placed a light kiss on top of Hart's head and relaxed, feeling Hart's breathing even out and deepen as he fell asleep, Tom following soon after.

When he woke again it was to one of the most strange and yet pleasant situations he'd ever experienced. Sometimes during the night Hart had moved round and now their bodies were pressed tightly together, pushing Tom's hard on against Hart's ass and creating some very nice friction as Hart moved slightly in his sleep.

Tom moaned and involuntarily moved slightly, pushing himself against Hart harder. He was surprised to hear another moan, not coming from himself, and he looked up to see Hart's chocolate eyes with their beautiful green slivers gazing at him, the pupils slightly dilated.

Smirking, Tom moved one hand down Hart's chest and brushed his erection. Hart was naked and Tom was amused and pleased to find that his cock was already hard. As he rubbed the tip Hart gasped and leant forward into a breathtaking kiss, full of passion and love. Tom smiled into Hart's mouth and opened his mouth to let the seeking tongue enter, sucking on it and making Hart moan, sending gorgeous vibrations through Tom's head, through his body and down to his groin.

Moving to the beautiful skin on Hart's neck, he kissed and licked the flesh, raising goosebumps across Hart's body, under his hands. He turned Hart to face him and kissed round to the point over his jugular before biting down on the skin and sucking, eliciting a delicious moan from Hart. He pulled back and licked the bruised flesh before gazing down at his Hart.

_His_ Hart. Marked by the lovebite over his throat, Hart was sprawled underneath him, somehow Tom had ended up on his hands and knees over the smaller body. Hart's face was open and his eyes were closed in bliss, beautiful black hair fanned on the pillow around him. Tom bent down again and licked a straight line down Hart's chest before blowing over it, causing shivers all over Hart's body.

Kissing a line down Hart's navel he ignored the erect cock and kissed round in an arc before licking and biting his way down Hart's thighs, inwardly smirking when Hart's whimpers became more urgent as he persistantly ignored the source of the other boy's discomfort.

"Tom..._please_..." Hart moaned and Tom decided to take pity on him. Slowly, lesiurely, he licked the top of Hart's member and Hart yelped. Tom figured that this was probably Hart's first time getting head, come to that, it was his first time _giving_ head as well. That made him feel slightly less nervous, though, because Hart wouldn't have anything to compare him to. A small spark of jealously shot through him at the very idea of Hart having someone to compare him to and he decided to focus on making it so good that Hart would never think of anyone else, that this would be forever connected with him and him alone.

He took the head in his mouth and sucked, gently at first but increasing in pressure until Hart was moaning in pleasure. He slid his mouth down the length of the shaft and bit lightly at the base, grinning at the yelp from Hart. He moved slowly, torturously back up and paused at the tip, looking up at Hart.

The boy really was beautiful. His lightly tanned skin was glistening with sweat, lips full and red from passionate kisses. His eyes were nearly all closed but there was a tiny bit of eye visible, a faint ring of chocolate brown and emerald green surrounding the huge, dilated pupils which shone with lust and love. Hart's hands were clenched in the bedclothes and his hair was damp with sweat, sticking to the skin across his forehead and shoulders.

He was utterly beautiful.

"Promise me." Tom growled, feeling emotion, jealousy, protectiveness and love swell up as he looked at his Hart. "Promise me you'll never look like this for anyone else." Nothing came from Hart's lips but a moan at Tom's words, and Tom lowered his mouth over the head of Hart's cock, not quite touching the skin, breathing hot air over the shuddering flesh and revelling in Hart's moan. "_Promise me._" Tom growled again.

"I...I promise." Hart moaned and Tom smiled his satisfaction before slipping his mouth over the skin, grazing his teeth over flesh and not stopping until the head of Hart's cock hit the back of his throat. "Uhnnn..." Hart moaned and gasped as Tom swallowed, the movement of the muscles in his mouth massaging Hart's cock.

Tom could taste the bitter-sweet precum in his mouth and pulled back, eliciting a moan of need and disappointment from Hart. Tom hooked Hart's legs up and over his shoulders and pressed a finger to Hart's entrance. Hart stiffened and his breath came in hot, short spurts.

Slowly, carefully, Tom slipped one of his fingers into the tight heat. It felt hot and he felt the muscles contract at the intrusion. Slipping the finger out again, he added another, drawing them in and out like he desperately wanted to do with his aching cock, before adding another. He brushed against something inside Hart and the raven haired teen's already shuddering breaths hitched deliciously. Stroking that spot again, harder, elicited a small cry from Hart's lips and Tom swooped down and claimed them for his own as he kept stroking Hart's prostate, thrilling at the way Hart cried into his mouth at every touch. Soon, he decided Hart was prepared enough. Leaning back from the mouth swollen from the kiss, he slipped his fingers out, grinning at the disappointed whimper, before slamming his cock into Hart's ass.

Hart yelled and Tom nearly yelled too. The heat around his cock was _so_ hot, _so _tight, he was aching to move but he knew he had to wait for Hart to adjust. The teen was breathing heavily, fists clenched in the sheets, eyes screwed shut. Slowly, his eyes flickered and he looked down at Tom, eyes huge and filled with lust and passion. It took every little bit of self-control Tom had to not move right then and there, but he held on and looked back at Hart with eyes he was sure were just as dilated as Hart's.

The beautiful eyes shone as Hart nodded and Tom began to move, slowly at first to let Hart get used to it, then faster as the pleasure began to build. Hart's cries spurred him on and fingernails scratched across his back, deep enough to leave stinging trails where they scored. Hart had his head buried in Tom's neck, damp hair tickling Tom's skin, kissing and licking, little cries tantalising him and as Tom hit his sweet spot, the whipered commands of "_Faster...Harder..._" making Tom climb ever higher.

Tom felt Hart shudder, mouth open in a silent scream of pleasure as the raven-haired teen began to climax, hot seed spurting from his cock, and Hart threw his head back as Tom climaxed too, baring his throat for Tom to lean down and bite, hard, at the joining of the chest and neck, in the hollow between his collarbones.

Hart let out a long, shaky breath as his body began to relax and Tom slipped out of him, wrapping his arms around the shaking teen and collapsing on the bed beside him, resting his head on the curtain of long black hair which was damp with sweat and smelt exclusively like Hart. They were both breathing heavily, Hart's eyes were still closed and he looked slightly dazed. The mark at the base of his throat was already bruising and Tom looked at it in something akin to pride that he had been allowed a mark of ownership on the beautiful creature that lay next to him. The mark would last for a good 12 hours, Tom reckoned, admiring it. He bent down and licked the pinkish red mark, kissing it softly, and Hart wriggled, exhaling breath and trying to talk at the same time so it came out laughing, like a giggle.

"Was that a giggle, love?" Tom said, smiling.

Hart blushed and wriggled closer to Tom, burying his smaller head under Tom's chin. There came a muffled "No..." from somewhere chest level and Tom kissed the top of Hart's head, inhaling the beautiful scent of Hart's hair.

They lay there for some time, taking comfort in each other's presence, before Tom's magical alarm triggered, telling him if they didn't move fast they would get no breakfast. Slowly, teasingly, they dressed each other, a reverse strip-tease that almost had Tom dragging Hart back to bed.

When they finally got down to the corridor outside the great hall they paused, Tom giving Hart a quick kiss before he pushed the doors open and they entered the great hall.

It was surreal. Every. Single. Face was turned to them, every eye was looking at them. The students were whispering quietly amongst themselves, the teachers frowned at the two boys, but carried on eating, trying very hard not to look as if they were staring. Most of the faces were distrustful, many looked almost disgusted, a few, mostly 'Claws, looked intruiged.

Tom turned and pulled Hart over to the Slytherin table. The boy seemed to be almost frozen by the stares, the unflinching gaze of everyone in the hall. As they sank into seats near Azul and Vlad the hall dissolved into whispers, students glancing their way continually until Tom couldn't ignore it any longer and turned to Azul.

"What's going on?" He asked.

Azul barely turned his head. He had an unreadable expression on his face, emotionless, cold, as he answered, one Tom had seen his father wearing and one he would undoubtedly pass onto his descendants. "Last night. After the dance." His voice was cold too, he seemed to be speaking more to the air than to Tom, and Tom noticed others un-discreetly listening. "You were seen. Hagrid, that oaf from Gryffindor, saw you and your little lover boy down by the quidditch pitch."

Tom began to understand, but Azul was not finished, and Tom was slightly shocked when Azul turned in his seat and hissed at him "How could you! How could you do that to me, Tom? I've always wanted you, always, and you never let me in, but this little whore from outside was welcomed with open arms and open lips. Why him, Tom? Why not me? Why never me?" Bitterness and hate spilled from Azul's mouth and Tom was taken aback, mouth open in one of the few times in his life when he was lost for words. "Just forget it." Azul spat. "You go off with your little whore, have fun, and don't expect me to ever stick around you again!" He stood and swept away from the table, cloak swirling around him as he marched out of the hall.

Tom sat stunned as the hall's population of whispers rose again, people barely trying to hide the fact that they were talking about him, not bothering to hide their glances. Tom could feel Hart shaking slightly next to him and reached under the table to hold his hand comfortingly, before turning to his food.

"Can't believe he would do that to me..." He muttered, thinking about Azul's departure. Had Azul really felt something for him? As far as he knew it had just been Azul being his usual self, hitting on everything that moved, but he had heard the pain and bitterness in the other youth's voice only too clearly. "I can't belive Azul felt that way, can't believe he reacted like that..."

"Why not?" A low, harsh voice came from opposite him, and he looked up. Vlad sat facing him, his head bowed so that his long black hair fell around his face, hiding his eyes. He was hunched over his food and seemed to be barely eating, pushing the dry toast around his plate but never lifting it to his mouth.

"What did you say Vlad?" Tom asked, disbeliveing of his own ears.

"Why shouldn't he say that? Why shouldn't he say what he feels?" Vlad looked up slightly and leaned forward, silver eyes narrowed. Tom felt the aura of power coming off him, all the bitterness and sorrow from that fateful night when their lives crossed flowing off him in waves.

"How can you _possibly _understand what he feels. Azul has been after you since he first met you, and I thought you were too blind to notice it. Hell, I thought that maybe you didnt go for guys, or maybe that you just werent interested in anybody. Well, you scratched the first rumour for me, I knew afterwards that it couldn't have been that. The father of your child will always be important, Tom, don't you see that?" The whispers were starting again, louder than ever before, and now even the teachers could hear. Vlad wasn't exactly being quiet and his voice seemed to be rising in pitch and volume as he spoke.

"I don't even know how I should be feeling towards you, I havent since that night we shagged! It was technical rape, Tom, however you try to dress it up! I don't remember it and neither do you but it sure as hell happened and you know I would have never gone with you if either of us had been in anything like our right minds. How many others have you been with like that? How many others have you slept with? How many others with a sore ass and no idea what had happened?"

There was a shout which made all three of them look round. Luca Zabini was sitting on the floor, robes in a mess around him, looking as if he'd just fallen off his chair. Even from here they could here the barely whispered "No..." and as the giggles and whispers started up again Vlad looked round with condemnation in his silver orbs.

"You see? You may not realise, Tom, but you are what they call 'hot'. I doubt many in the school would have rejected you had you offered, back when you were the school's star pupil." Vlad stood and walked out of the hall. He did not swirl his cape as he left, nor did he bang open the doors like Azul had done, but somehow there was no doubt that his exit was just as meaningful, would stick in the assembled minds just as much as Azul's had. He walked down the long tables, feet making no sound on the floor and slipped through the doors like a shadow.

Tom felt all eyes leave the door and turn on him and Hart. He looked to his other supposed 'friends' but they wouldn't meet his eyes. He felt Hart's shaking reach a peak beside him and wasnt surprised when the smaller boy fled the room, ignoring the eyes that followed him until Tom was the focus of the attention again.

Slowly, planning quickly in his mind what he was going to do, he stood. This was going to take a huge amount of magic and if he hadn't been the most brilliant student in school, he wouldn't have even attempted it. Closing his eyes, he put his hand to his face in a parody of stress and anguish, but really he was focussing on his core of magic and mentally reaching out in a large wave of power to touch every person in the hall, every student and every teacher. Once he was sure he had a grip on every mind in the room he clenched his fist and forcibly drew the memories of the morning out of every person's memory. He felt it as each mind succumbed, most going swiftly, a couple resisting slightly.

One mind violently struggled and Tom felt it to be Dumbledore's, sitting at the right hand of Dippet and mentally struggling in Tom's grasp. Slowly, sluggishly, he succumbed and Tom felt it as he slipped into the dazed stupor that followed a memory wipe. He opened his eyes and looked round the room. Every person was looking around dazedly, staring at their food as if theyd only just realised it was there. Tom got out of his seat and left the great hall before they could recover their wits and ask him why he was standing up and watching them.

He spent the rest of the day wandering round the castle, trying to escape the flocks of students leaving for the christmas holidays and trying to find Hart. The boy wasn't in the slytherin dorms, the bathrooms, the dungeons, the classrooms, Tom even went down to the chamber of secrets to see if Hart had gotten down there, remembering how he had been before and could speak the necessary parseltongue to enter the chamber. But to no avail.

Finally, after the last of the leaving students had headed off for the Hogwarts Express, Tom ventured out into the bitterly cold grounds, slipping on the paths that were covered in frost even though it was after midday. Tom had skipped lunch to carry on searching for Hart.

He found him, at last, lying against a tree near the edge of the lake, not ten feet from where Tom had originally found his still body only a week ago, but what felt like months. As he approached the teen he saw, hovering in the air above the still form, was another one of those funny air patches which played visions. Tom sat down next to Hart and pulled the boy to him, cradling his freezing body in his arms as he watched the vision.

It was dark, very dark, in this one, and Tom could barely see the faces of the people in it. He could make out something which looked like a stone statue, maybe a gravestone, and a figure tied to it. In front of him was a man, talking. He had been talking when Tom had reached Hart and was just stopping. The sound in this one was weird, tinny, like some out-of-tune music player, and Tom couldn't make out what he was saying.

Then, almost without warning it seemed, the figure on the gravestone was released and they and the other man started duelling, wizard style. Tom recognised the wicked green of _avada kedavra_ and the more regular red of the stunning spell. Really, what was the figure from the gravestone thinking, fighting a potential killer with a stunner? He had been so immersed in his thoughts that he almost jumped when golden light seemed to fill the air, shining from whatever was going on in the vision.

Squinting into the brightness, Tom saw that the two figure's wands were connected by a bright light and something strange was happening to the elder man's wand. Little wips of smoke were coming from it, like the smoke from a fire, but the man, or boy, now he looked closer, fighitng him seemed to see them go and look at them, almost listen to them. With a sudden wrench the boy pulled away, breaking the light and running from the other man who looked slightly disorientated for a second.

The boy ran towards Tom, seeimg to be heading out of the vision and Tom involuntarily pulled back, but the second he did the boy in the vision leant down and grabbed two things. A black, lumpy thing which looked like it might have been a body and an ornate, weird silver cup. The second he touched them, he vanished, and the vision went black before fading away until you couldn't tell it from any other piece of air.

As Tom slowly came back to the real world he became of Hart shaking and squirming in his arms, whimpering and muttering in parseltongue. "_No...no...Cedric!...Mum...Dad!...Help me...help...make it stop...make it go away..._" Gently, Tom shook Harry awake, all the time whispering comforts into his ear, in parseltongue. The moment Hart woke he clung to Tom, still whimpering, and Tom held him and kissed his hair and waited for the tears to go away.

Hart's face was pressed into Tom's throat and it took a while for Tom to realise that the pleasant, slightly tingly sensations he felt there were not in fact Hart's breaths but light kisses, which progressed to bites as Hart realised Tom was responding.

"Horny again, love?" Tom laughed softly, and felt Hart grin against his neck. "Isn't it a little inappropriate?"

"Don't care..." He mumbled. "Want you now." Tom smiled wickedly down at the mop of black hair.

"Your wish is my command, sweetheart." He smirked as he pushed Hart down on his back, smirking as the green flecks in Hart's eyes, now more like streaks, glittered as Hart rasied himself up on his elbows to watch as Tom unbuttoned his robes and the jeans he wore underneath. Once Tom had got Hart's pants open and let Hart's cock loose he looked down at it and licked his lips slowly and apprieciatively, making Hart groan at the sight.

Slowly, lesiurely, he licked up the bottom of the shaft, before taking the very tip of the head in his mouth and sucking gently, getting harder until Hart was moaning undernearth him. He slipped his mouth over the hot, shuddering skin, taking Hart all the way into his mouth and swallowing, feeling the muscles in his throat caress the sides of Hart's cock.

It didnt take long for him to coax Hart's release from him, one hand lightly stroking Hart's rim, the other pumping his own cock as they both spilled almost simultaneously.

Tom half collapsed on Hart, landing heavily on his elbows, lips brushing Hart's chest in an unplanned but not unwelcome kiss. As his mind came down from it's high, he became aware of a murmur that whispered on the night air. Looking up, he saw to his surprise yet _another_ of the windows in the air with a scene playing inside it.

Ignoring it, he focused on Hart instead, the boy was writhing and whimpering, almost moaning. In another situation this might have been a very pleasant state for Tom to have been in, but it was very evident that Hart was not aroused, in fact he was covered in cold sweat and the whimpers that escaped his throat were frightened, desperate. They were all Tom could hear, deafeningly loud even though they were barely breaking the silence of the night around them. The faint muttering of the vision was nothing compared to the terrified sounds of his lover, and Tom stroked the fine hairs at the side of Hart's face, whispering into his ear softly.

"It's okay, it's okay, don't worry, I'm here, I'll protect you..." There was a roar from the vision, he could barely hear the words coming out of his own mouth, and he looked up in time to see a huge snake lunge at the surface of the air window, long fangs dripping venom and gore, mouth a gaping, black hole. He instinctively pulled Hart to his chest in protection and the snake howled as it's head exploded with blood, running down the side of its face and over the small black figure almost inside its maw of a mouth. The figure bowed its head against the rain of blood and pulled away, dripping red, as the creature squalled and writhed and sank out of view.

Hart suddenly gave a shrill keen and Tom looked down quickly, the boy was gripping his arm so hard the skin was white, nails making red crescents on the skin, there was some more faint talking, a yell from the vision and then the air went dark, the window dissipating into the night air.

Hart was still shaking, a single silent tear halfway down his jaw. Tom licked it away and Hart smiled slightly, sleepily, snuggling into Tom's warmth. Wrapping the boy in his own cloak, Tom gathered up the rest of their scattered clothes and moved them into the outskirts of the forbidden forest, until they were nestled at the base of a huge pine tree, the strong bark behind them surrounded by a thick bed of old pine needles which were soft and smelled sweet. Half lying, half sitting against the base of the tree, Tom drew the sleeping Hart to him and transfigured some of the clothes into blankets wandlessly, wrapping them up in a warm cocoon until he couldn't feel the chill of the frosty night air any more. Closing his eyes, he allowed himself to slip into a shallow, fitful sleep.

POV Change - Harry

Harry yawned sleepily. He could feel something soft behind him and warm, furry things surrounding him. Maybe he had slept over at the Burrow and somehow fallen asleep with Ron... no, wait. Something about that wasn't right. Maybe the slytherin dormitories had disposed of their silk sheets and aquired fur ones? That didn't sound very likely, and it wouldnt explain the warmth at his back. Maybe he had had a nightmare and one of the other boys had comforted him. Azul maybe... or Tom... Tom?

Harry sat up, or tried to, gasping when his chest was constricted by material stretched tightly across it. For a few second he struggled frantically with his bindings before a pair of warm arms encircled him from behind and pulled him back onto a hot, hard body. He looked up into teal eyes and tensed even further for one blinding moment of terror before remembering and forcing himself to relax.

"Good Morning, lover." The body against him vibrated with the low tone and Harry felt a shiver of delight pass across his body. He smiled up at the larger boy, shaking his head to brush his hair out of his eyes.

"Good Morning, lover." He answered and was rewarded with a smirk from the other boy, and a deep, slow kiss. As the kiss broke he opened his eyes to find Tom staring at him very intensely, eyes searching his face as if fascinated by his visage.

"What?"

"What are those windows in the air, Hart?" Harry froze at the question, he could literally feel the tension grip his body in an iron vice. The windows, the visions of the future, were coming with alarming regularity now and he didn't know how many more there were before he was forcibly dragged back to his own time and in front of the same man who was even now holding him in his arms, tracing the fine hairs around his face, staring at him with teal eyes. But of course when he returned the man would not know him, would not be Tom Riddle, the beautiful boy who he had fallen head-over-heels in love with in the space of a week, but instead the cold, murderous Lord Voldemort, perfectly prepared to kill him and to enjoy doing so.

He breathed in, quick and ragged. What would Tom think when he simply disappeared, assuming that was what he was going to do, not fall through a portal of mysterious light or something, though right now he wasn't sure which would be worse. He didn't _want_ tio back to his own time when the world was black and dead, all of his friends killed and the man who was technically his lover a millisecond away from taking his life.

In fact...as soon as he returned, he would die, wouldn't he? Harry choked as green flashed before his eyes, recalled just how exactly he had fallen into this time. The spell had already been said, hadn't it? Or had Voldemort not said the fatal words yet? Harry couldn't remember, the exact details were fuzzy, as if his memory was full of fluff. Either way,. the moment he arrived back, he would be hit with the killing curse green, and he would be dead anyhow.

Dead. Deceased. Gone. Forever. No Tom.

Someone was holding him tight and patting him on the back, whispering calming words in his ear, but he couldn't hear them. The fear of death, somehow absent during the last battle, now surged up from his primal being, in a rush of survival instint and self-preservation. _I don't want to die_! He thought desperately, and clutched onto Tom with enoguh force to draw blood. He could feel himself hyperventilating and sound was becomming tinny in his ears, that little he could hear of it. Looking up in a desperate attempt to clear his mind and calm himself down, he caught instead something which only increased his panic.

Another window, like a door into another world, was above him. The torchlit hall inside was horriblly familiar. The dark mirror, swirling with nothingness and the boy and the man in the turban, speaking to someone he could not see.

His mind was too frazzled to focus on what the people were saying, but suddenly the man started taking off his turban, unwinding it until his perfectly bald head came into view, and etched upon it...Harry didn't look, he buried his face in Tom's shoulder, feeling his lover bury his own face in Hart's hair. Some tiny part of him relaxed with relief at this, he somehow knew it was very important for Tom not to see Lord Voldemort in any of the visions.

As the voices faded away he hazarded another look upward. The sky was grey and clear, no windows, no visions in sight. Tom was staring up at the sky too, looking thoughtful and slightly worried. Harry buried his head in the strong chest again and waiting for the awkward questions, and the rejection that would inevitably follow.

"You know, Hart..." Tom said, still gazing at the sky. "I don't mind if you don't tell me all your secrets. I haven't told you all of mine, and sometimes thigns take time to explain." He looked down at Harry and smiled, his eyes sad. Brushing his elegant hand over Hart's mussed up hair, he spoke again, this time almost whispering. "I'll always be here for you to tell. I love you."

Harry could feel his eyes fill with tears, knew Tom would feel them against his bare chest and realise, but unable to stop them. That was the thing, wasn't it. Tom _wouldn't_ always be there to love him. Soon, horribly, terribly soon, Harry would be dragged back to a world where Tom was about as far from loving him as it was possible to get. He felt a finger underneath his chin and his head was tilted up to meet Tom's in a sweet, gentle kiss.

Harry responded immediately, weaving his hands into Tom's and opening his mouth, inviting Tom's tongue into his warm cavern. He sucked on Tom's tongue, pressing his mouth against his lovers' and ignoring the tears that were flowing down his face. Tom broke the kiss, pulling away with his hair as mussed as Hart's, turning his tongue instead to licking up the tears that fell, that kept on falling as Harry revelled in the feeling of being loved, of being wanted, of knowing that right here, right now, was his whole world.

There was a second where Tom's tongue left Harry's singing skin and Tom looked straight at Harry, teal eyes meeting brown. The gaze was scorching, Harry felt his heart twist inside his chest and felt like his soul had leap out of his eyes into Tom's, coming the other way. There were no words because words weren't needed, all they needed right now was right here and Harry felt his heart simulatenously break and swell with love, resulting in an emotional explosion which made him emit an actual cry of pain, clutching his head as a man's yell echoed around them.

A horribly familiar man's yell.

_"Lily, take Harry and go! It's him! Go! Run! I'll hold him off..."_

"No..." Harry moaned, holding his head in his hands. His scar didn't hurt, it was rather that his whole head was on fire with burning pain, penetrated only by the sound of his parent's voices. "No..._please_...go away...mum...dad!"

_A cackle of high pitched, screaming laughter, like claws scratching on bones, a male yell and a thump_ and Harry was still crying, everything was so real, he could hear every creak of the stairs, every swish of boots on carpet, the _sssshhck_ sound of the door on the carpet as it was pushed open and now the screaming was starting...

_"Not Harry, not Harry, please not Harry!" "Stand aside you silly girl ... stand aside, now..." "Not Harry, please no, take me, kill me instead..." _This was not how it was meant to be, this vision should not be playing, Tom would see, would see his future self...would see his mother die...

_See his mother die..._

Harry's head rose so fast he might have been electrified. Gazing into the window in the air, he could see over a black robed shoulder _and thank Merlin, Tom wouldn't be able to see, but _there was his mother in front of him, crouched against the cot with a squalling mass of white cloth and pink skin, black hair and green eyes.

Lily Potter had the baby clasped close to her, pressing it against her chest in a desperate and futile attempt to get it further away from the figure only she could see. Her face, her beautiful, beautiful face was alight with utter terror, green eyes _so like his own _wide with fear, face white and hair the colour of fire hanging around her face, damp with sweat and tears.

_"Not Harry! Please... have mercy... have mercy..." "Crucio"_ The woman was screaming, head thrashing from side to side, holding the baby so tight it must have hurt him, for he screamed too, yelled out his displeasure, pain and fear to the world. The woman stopped screaming, going limp and unmoving, before rasing her head and spitting blood out of her mouth, leaving her lips unnaturally red.

_Cold high laughter_ so shrill Harry felt it echo through his heart and mind, making him clutch his head in his hands, but he couldn't look away now, not _as_ _the woman rasied her head and spat again, blood flying out of her mouth at the black figure in the forefront of the picture. The laughter increased in volume and pitch until it was nearly unbearable, but the woman's eyes continued to glitter with green fire._

_"Avada Kedavra." The shrill voice said and _Harry screamed out as the body fell to the floor, the eyes of fire extinguished and dull, dead, _the baby was still crying, screaming from underneath the corpse of his mother, the black robed figure approached and klicked the woman aside, she slid and lay crumpled and broken against the wall. The baby lay in it's nest of blankets, eyes wide and staring straight at the figure, at the window, as if it was visible._

_"Well, well, the little Potter heir. You would have grown up to be a great wizard, I am sure of it." The figure paused._

_Murderer and child stared at one another, eyes having met, silently. The eyes of the child were huge and round, inocennce and purity and hope and love shone from them like twin beacons of loveliness._

_"Avada Kedavra." The spell came quietly, almost whispered, and _that was strange, because Harry had always imagined it yelled in anger and hate. This was solemn, almost regretful, and _the eyes filled the vision, and the glow in them was not only hopeloveinnocencepuritylovewonderbeautytendernesslovelovelove but the reflection of the green light that approached, illuminating the facets and emerald and jade and crystal, agate, grass, leaves._

The eyes filled the cut in the sky, lighting up the grass, the glare burning brighter and brighter until it was on him, around him, through him...

He disappeared.

POV Change - Tom

Hart disappeared.

Tom was frozen for a moment, arms suddenly empty, vision suddenly completely Hart-free. The window in the air was gone, the green light was gone, he was utterly alone.

Replaying the last few minuted in his memory, he was still stunned. Hart had seemed like he was having a fit as the last vision had come, moaning and clutching his head, calling out for his mother and father. Tom didn't even know who they were, but the woman in the vision seemed to have been significant, Hart had certainly seemed really distraught when she had been killed. He didnt know who the child in the vision had been, but those green eyes had been strange, worrying even. As the light had exploded from the vision, becoming real for the first time, Hart had backed away, eyes wide, and as he turned his face to the sky as the light touched him, a silent scream of agony coming from his throat, his eyes had been green.

Not brown. Not brown with flecks of green. _Green._ How had Hart's eyes changed, unless... unless is had been the reflection of the the light overtaking him, or some bizarre effect of the green fire...

But...Hart was gone. There were no footprints on the frost covered ground, no change in the surface of the lake, nothing visible in the sky, Hart had simply vanished. He was not here anymore. But Tom could feel his body heat even now leaving his body, the source of the warmth gone. Hart had been here, for certain.

But where had he gone?

Standing slowly, he dressed in the slightly damp school robes draped on the branches of the tree and set off towards the castle. Something bizarre was going on here.

Ten minutes later he sat in a chair in front of Albus Dumbledore's desk, he being the only teacher Tom trusted to help him. Hart was gone, vanished without a trace, and for the past five minutes he'd been explaining the events of the night, minus a few important details, such as the fact he and Hart had been...were, he corrected himself, romantically involved.

He would find out what had happened to him and he would bring Hart back.

"So sir...what do you think happened?"

The old man's eyes were twinkling in that infuriating way behind his half-moon spectacles. He steepled his fingers and rested his chin upon them, looking at Tom and twinkling smugly. "Well, my dear boy, I think that our friend Mr Peake may not have been...shall we say, of this world?"

"You mean from another universe? A parallel one?" Tom frowned. He didn't think it sounded very likely.

"No, my dear boy, I what I mean is that Hart Peake, if that was his real name, which I doubt highly, was most likely not from this decade, if not further away." The old man got up and took down a book from one of his bookcases, it was new, shiny and as he passed it to Tom there was the faint smell that shop-bought books always have, completely unidentifyable as anything other than that new-book smell. "Take a look at that, my boy, and see if you understand."

Tom looked down at the front cover of the book. "Time Turners, What, Where and When." He read out, not bothering to keep the disdain out of his voice. "Do you mean to tell me that Hart was a traveller in time? That he had a time turner?"

"Think about it, Tom. He arrived on our grounds, unconsious, in robes which had creature and human blood all over them, ripped and torn. The robes themselves were definitely from Hogwarts, they had the crest, but the style was minutely different. Do you rememebr the way Hart knew his way around the castle without a guide? Hart Peake was or will be at some point a student of Hogwarts. I cannot tell whether he came from the past or the future, though I would think the future as he seemed quite at home with some of the rennovations made two summers ago. Do you see, my dear boy?"

Tom was almost frozen in his seat. Hart had been a time traveller. The beautiful boy he had fallen in love with had been somone not of his own time, years from his home. Hart could not come back, he had done his own research on Time Turners and he knew what happened when they were used beyond their normal capacity. Suddenly, all the bizarre visions maked sense. They had not been hallucinations or spells, they had been visions of a time at some point in the future.

He did some quick mental calculations. If he took the frequency of the visions and multiplied it by the number of them, then divided it by the power of the average Time Turner... Merlin. Hart was from somewhere between twenty five to seventy five _years_ in the future. Time Turners could not travel more than a year or too without suffering serious damage. No wonder Hart had seemed so distressed by his visions.

But If Hart would be alive some time in the next seventy five years, then he would still be alive too. He vowed right there, silently, to find his Hart if it took him his whole life to do so. Then he remembered something else about Hart's disappearance, and looked up at Dumbledore again.

"Sir...just before Hart disappeared, there was a huge flash of green light, like... like an _Avada Kedavra _curse sir. What does it mean?"

Dumbledore looked up sharply and his face became grave. "It means... I am afraid, my dear boy, that someone cast the killing curse at the boy we knew as Hart Peake, either a moment before he activated the time turner or the second after, where he will have returned to. There is...unfortunately, no way to survive the killing curse, as you know..." He looked up from where his gaze had fallen to his hands in his lap and his eyes met Tom's.

"He's...dead?" Tom asked, struggling to keep his voice steady. _His Hart? Dead?_

"Well...right now, my boy, he has probably not been born yet. But one day, he will, and at some point, someone will throw the killing curse at him. It is remarkable that he had a Time Turner, he had probably set it to come back to this point to change soemthing, thoguh I can't think what...Unfortunately, I doubt he managed it, otherwise he would have Time Turned back immediately. He...is...was...will probably be killed by that killing curse, and there is little we can do about it."

"Little? You mean there is something we can do? I can do?" Tom was listening so carefully to Dumbledore's word the man was astonished, Tom never paid this much attention to anyone.

"Well my dear boy, we could go after every person likely to perform the killing curse born in the nest few decades, although that would be a little impractical..." Tom waited, as Dumbledore hesitated, wondering whether to speak or not. "There is a spell which will allow you to immediately find the killer of a certain person. It is used a lot amongst the aurors, but occasionally it is needed at Hogwarts, although those are sad, sad times."

"Tell it to me!" Tom said, his voice containing such passion and urgency that Dumbledore almost stuttered.

"Very...well my dear boy. The incantation is _Areh Shino_. You must perform it under the full moon and drink a solution of Augurey blood and something from the person who you wish to track the killer of. Some hair or skin cells will do. Drink it, say the incantation and then pray, my dear boy. This is borderline dark magic, you must be very careful."

Tom stood abruptly. He knew where he could get his hands on Augurey blood, and there was a full moon in two nights. He would do this. He would find Hart's murderer and kill him. He had performed much darker than simply borderline dark spells, he was not afraid of what it mgiht do to him, it could not be worse than what had already happened.

When he was out in the passageway he paused and sent a powerful memory wipe sweeping through Dumbledore's office. The old man would forget the conversation, he did not want to be interrupted and forbidden from doing what he had to do. He had made the spell large enough to encompass the sorting hat, the pheonix and all of the portraits too. There was no need for any of them to remember it and inform the headmaster later. He hoped he hadn't made it too strong, with the way his luck was going and the way his magic was fluctuating from mental stress, he wouldn't have been surprised if they forgot the whole of the last week, even the last month. At least that way they wouldn't remember Hart.

The two days passed in a blur of activity. preparing to sneak out of the castle at midnight when there were only a dozen pupils for the entire teacher population to watch made doing anything secretly extremely hard. He borrowed the Augurey blood from the potions stores, breaking down the pathetic wards as if they were mere paper walls.

The ritual itself was easy, he stood by the lake in the place where he had both found and lost the love of his life and drank the potion, made with some of the hairs found on Hart's pillow in his dormitory. As it was still burning tis way down his throat he pulled his magic from inside him and spoke the words of the incantation, calling to find the killer or his love. He felt something twinge and settle inside of him and knew that he was prepared, that the incantation would inform him when he met his enemy, however many years it might be in the future. He even recovered Hart's wand from where it had fallen, returning it to Ollivander the next time he went to Diagon Alley with an apology and no explanation, trying as good a memory wipe as he could with Ollivander's impressive mental sheilds.

Then he set to planning how he would kill this enemy. He very quickly realised that to have not only got close enough to Hart to be able to fire off a killing curse at him, but to also have put him into the state the boy had been when he arrived, covered in torn robes bloody with creature, human and his own blood, the murderer would ahve to be insanely strong. Hart was very powerful, so the murderer would be even more powerful, and so Tom would have to rise above them all in power, if only to make sure that he could beat the killer when the time came.

His friends noticed the change in him almost immediately. But instead of shying away from him, they seemed to rally to his obsession, his natural charisma and the passion he put into his work. They could not know about his real reasons for wanting power, so he focused on some of his other pet hates, spinning fantasies for them as easily as a spider spins webs. They followed his command and as soon as he left school he set them up into forming a power base for him, from which he could rise. He left them for a few years, travelling and seeking the power which he craved, which he needed. Along the way, he made other Horcruxes, understanding his foolishness and recklessness with his soul the first time and making no mistakes every time hence.

He tried to make himself immortal, or at least unusually long-lived, so he would nto have to suffer the inhibitions of age if the killer took a long time to appear. He even invented a new name for himself, to strike fear into the hearts of both his followers and enemies. Voldemort, flight-of-death, he would run from death until he had avenged his Hart.

He imprisoned a seventeen year-old version of himself inside an enchanted diary and entrusted it to Azul Malfoy as a wedding present, telling him that he should be honoured beyond his wildest dreams and to keep it utterly safe, that he coudl not imagine its value. After recovering Slytherin's ring and locket, he put pieces of his soul in them too, sealing them away with the utmost care. A goblet of infinite value from its connections to the founders was also chosen and imbued with his soul. He had decided to seal away his soul in seven different containers, seven being the most magical number, and although one piece of his soul was lost in the time-space continuum it was relatively safe there until Hart was born.

When he returned to his followers after the years of travel they greeted him loyally, marrvelling at his new appearence. The spell sand transformations, experiments he had had to go through had left him hideously deformed, downright terrifying and surprisingly similar to the portrait of Slytherin he had based his costume on so long ago, right down to the snow white skin, the red eyes and the forked tongue. His voice was broken in one particularly nasty experiment gone wrong so he was only able to speak in a low his or a high shriek. His followers seemed to be equally terrified of both.

He named his followers the Death Eaters, for they were helping him on his quest to kill the one who would cause Hart's Death. It was a good name, it inspired terror and fear in those who opposed his work and fear works out to respect and respect means power. Tom was unbelievably powerful. For every nine experiments that had gone horribly wrong, one had gone right and he now had more power than he had ever thought possible. But it was not enough.

What if, when he finally met the person who would kill his beloved? What if he was not strong enough to kill them? Hart would go unavenged and he would never get to feel the sweet satisfaction of having gotten revenge for his lover. That would be terrible and Tom had vowed to find and kill Hart's murderer. So he would.

There was resistance against him, it was obvious there would be. He had more power in one fingernail than most people had in both hands, he lead a group of cruel, prejudiced people, he killed people. Slowly, people began to fight back, and Tom had to increase his forces and include creatures to help him defeat the enemies that would stop him killing Hart's murderer. When the old fool Dumbledore got involved, Tom wasn't really surprised. He had suspected that his over-enthusiastic mind-wipe could have removed the old goat's memory of Hart Peake and it seemed he had been right. Dumbledore believed he was in it for the murder or mudbloods and muggles and the gathering of power just like everyone else.

The cleansing of the wizarding race had been an idea he had known would incite his followers to do his bidding. They were mostly pureblood, with the occasional half-blood with style here and there, nearly all in Slytherin, though a few came from Ravenclaw. The older ones who were raising families brought their children up to worship him and the younger ones garnered support from the Slytherins still at school. Soon he had an army which was large and powerful, and he needed it against the contstant resistance from Dumbledore and the Ministry of Magic.

Dumbledore was made headmaster of the school when Dippet died, a huge surprise to absolutely nobody. Almsot immediately he started creating his own group of elite followers to counter Tom's huge army, calling them the Order of the Pheonix after his stupid bird, Fawkes. Recruiting mainly from Gryffindor, a little from Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw, never from Slytherin, the order grew, until it was quite regular that they would appear in battles against the Death Eaters.

The students of Hogwarts were contsantly pressured into joining one side or the other. Most of the Slytherins either joined or sypmpathised with the Death Eaters, most of the Gryffindors either joined or sympathised with the Order of the Pheonix. Ravenclaw contributed a small amount to both sides, but largely chose neither and were content to devote themselves to learning and ignore politics. The Hufflepuffs were pretty hopeless, there was only about five Hufflepuffs in the entirety of the Death Eater army, and only slightly more than than in the Order. Mostly they stayed neutral and confused, left alone but offered protection by the Order because the Death Eaters despised their simple-mindedness.

Tom kept travelling, establishing relationships throughout the world and with the many creature clans, the vampires, the werewolves, trolls, acknowlaging the merpeople, centaurs, dragons and so on. It was on one of these explorations that he met Nagini, a deadly snake which he ended up taking as his familiar. Nagini was smart, beautiful, in snake terms, loved to speak with him in parseltongue and did his every bidding. After long deliberations Tom asked her if she wanted to become his seventh horcrux and she accepted with honour. Tom was extremely nervous about binding himself into another living thing again but after perfomrming the ritual he felt he had done the right thing. Nagini was everything he could want in a familiar and a soul-storer, she was utterly loyal and very dangerous.

Just under forty years after he had graduated from Hogwarts, one of his spies told him that a prophecy had been made by one of the descendants of the great seer Cassandra, and that it involved him. He strove to hear it and when he discovered and understood it he set out on a search for the child mentioned in the prophecy. Unsurprisingly, it was the child of two the Order of the Pheonix members, but his tribulations on how he was going to get to the child were solved when he was approached by their secret keeper, a runty little man who introduced himself as Wormtail.

The traitor was initiated and told him the location of the Potters house, where the baby was being kept. Taking a select few of his elites, he insitigated an attack on Godric's Hollow, breaking into the house. The father was easy to dispatch, a noble man who died bravely, trying to save his wife and child.

As he climbed the stairs something bothered him. It wasn't anything physical, it was like he had forgotten something very important and that he had to remember it, but he ignored the feeling only to have it return full force when he opened the door of the nursery.

Ignroing the woman's cries he crucioed her and then killed her. She had spirit, a truly firey passion for life, but she was not know who he was after. Under the body of the woman lay the baby, green eyes still wet with tears looking up at him.

Suddenly the sense of deja vu washed over him in a wave. He'd been in this situation before, he was certain. He had killed countless people, many infants, but this particular situation was bizzare in that he felt like he was seeing it from two minutely different points of view, from his own eyes and then from another pair of eyes just behind his back. He stared at the child, looking up at him with big green eyes that rememded him of something really strongly, but he couldn't put his finger on.

"Well, well, the little Potter heir. You would have grown up to be a great wizard, I am sure of it." Even the words he spoke sounded like they were coming from two different places at once, though in the same voice. Raising his wand, he pointed it at the child on the floor, who simply looked at him, as if resigned to its fate. No child of one should have been so intelligent, he thought, but said the words. "_Avada Kedavra_."

The spell his the boy in the centre of his forehead but to his utter astonishment it _bounced_ right off! Instead of killing the boy is rebounded back the way it had come, towards him. He had a split second of total shock as it sped towards him and then a tearing, agonising pain shot through his body. It was like someon taking a scalpel to the inside of his skin and scraping the flesh raw. It was pain beyond anything he had ever felt before and with a howl his soul was ripped from his body and all he could see was darkness.

For a long time, he stayed like that, longer than he could count, feeding on the minds of small animals. Slowly, in his spirit form, he travelled north, away from Godrics Hollow. Time had no meaning when you had no body to measure it with and for eaons he was lost in a grey world full of little minds full of little thoughts and smallness and weakness. He had almsot given up hope that he could ever be freed from the world of grey, until he discovered that a rat animagus was nearby. Piggybacking in the mind of the animagus, he discovered to his astonishment that it was the same man who had betrayed the Potters to him. Disgusted at being in such a weak form, he transfered himself into a more suitable subject, a teacher at Hogwarts, loyal and fairly powerful.

While riding in the back of the teacher's mind, he discovered many things about his fall from power. Everything he needed to know what inside the man's mind, and he set the man to his old task of killing Harry Potter as soon as he realised the boy was in the school. Another follower, Severus Snape, was minorly helpful, but Tom had suspiucions that the man had enjoyed his ten year reprieve from his command a little too much.

Tom needed power, that was blatantly obvious. How was he possibly supposed to avenge Hart in the state he was now? Persuading his carrier to drink unicorn blood was no challenge, but the aquiring of the philospopher's stone preved to be difficult becasue the abominable Harry Potter boy killed the teacher he was riding, forcing him back into spirit form.

It was three years before someone found him again, unsurprisingly the same rat animagus as last time. The man was useful, to a point, he could spy phenomenally well and was loyal through fear, which was one of the most surefire ways of making sure followers followed and didn't desert. The man also managed to fashion a crude form for him, ugly and child size, but not corporeal. It took research and the help of a fanatically loyal, if slightly insane follower to acheive a true body, the spell for which he completed with flesh from Wormtail, bone from his father's grave and blood from the boy Harry Potter, fifty two years after graduating from Hogwarts.

The body was good. It was strong, not frail, and did not need all the tedious mortal requirements like sleep, sustanance or liquids. It was maintainted with his own magic and so was powerful and magical in itself. For the first time in fourteen years, Tom felt whole and powerful again. Attempting to kill the boy right then and there though, was a problem, because he had not yet learnt the limitations and strengths of his new body and so the Potter boy managed to escape, telling of his ressurection to the world. They were skeptical, as he knew they would be. It is an unbelivable story.

It took him another three years before he was at his former power, and strong enough to have a go at taking on Hogwarts. Through carefully planning, organisation and merciless slaughter, he had reduced the Order of the Pheonix mostly to just the Gryffindor seventh years and their loyal companions, although far more turned up to the battlefield than he expected.

The battle was fairly straightforward. The students fought well, they had all the advantages of youth but none of experience, save for Potter. Youth was enough in many cases and some of his best Death Eaters fell at the hands of the students. There were still plenty enough to win the battle, though, and it wasn't long before he had the boy Harry Potter in front of him, the boy who had stripped him of his powers, of his chance for over ten years. He might have missed the killer in that time, and it as time to get his revenge on Potter for the destruction of his first body.

Letting Wormtail incapacitate the boy, he started to taunt. He was good at taunts, they were one of the things that terrified the hell out of his followers, his taunts and threats. The other thing he had always learned to do just before he killed an important enemy in public was to tell his followers why he was doing it. This kept them loyal to his cause. He spouted the usual 'Death to mudbloods and muggles' lines and prepared to kill the boy who had ruined his quest for so long.

_Goodbye, Harry Potter_ He hissed, enjoying the looks on his followers faces when he spoke in the snake tongue. They were alwasys a bit distubed by it, but Potter could speak it too and it seemed fitting, he wanted this death to be something marginally private, between the two of them.

The boy hissed back, his face a grimace of pain and hate. _Goodbye, Voldemort._His hand moved, but Voldemort was already casting the spell and as the green light blasted from his wand it hit Harry Potter in the centre of his chest, making a scorch mark on the bare skin.

_Wait. Bare skin? _The logical, calculating part of his brain informed his that this was not what Harry Potter had looked like until a moment ago, He had been wearing clothes, his hair had been short...

The boy on the ground groaned. Tom's logical mind told him this was not possible, that the boy had just been hit by a killing curse. Then the logical part of his mind, and the calculating part, and in fact all the parts of his mind were short-circuited as the boy raised his head from where it had been lying, blasted by the force of the curse.

Eyes met. Teal and Green.

Green eyes, framed by longish mussed up dark hair, hair that _he himself_ had mussed up, over fifty five years ago.

"_...Hart_?"

Author's Notes: Ducks more random flying objects Yes, I know. How could I leave it at such a crucial point, etc etc. I promise, I _promise_ on pain of No More Fanfiction Ever that I will not leave this as long as I did before. My explanation, flimsy though it is, that after I last updated before the summer holidays (ye gods, has it really been that long??) I was preparing for a summer of sun, sea, sky and smut. However, I sank not into Harry/Tom as I had intended but into Harry/Draco instead, and spent most of the summer trawling vampire fics and so on. By the beginning of the new term I realised I had to do something about the appalling lack of Harry/Tom in my life, so I tried to write more, but got stuck on the damn smut. For those of you who are writers, you should know how hard it is to write decent smut. For those who are not, you cannot understand. But I think I did okay. After I finally broke my writers block, I wrote little bits for weeks on end and then about a week ago I was ambushed suddenly by the inspiration pixies and wrote seven pages in a row (thats over half the chapter, and was 4 hours solid writing with no breaks). It has been to the beta and back this week and hopefully now I should be able to write the final chapter sometimes soon.

Thankyou, thankyou, I cannot say thankyou enough times to the people who reviewed and kept this fic on my mind. When the reviews go away, I forget, and forgetting is a terrible thing. So please review, review and review. Keep bugging me, and I will hopefully churn out the next chapter soon. Thankyou again!


	8. The Final Chance

**Author: Silverhair Theory**

**Rating: M**

**Disclaimer: I nothing. JKRowling owns everything. If you prosecute me all you're likely to get is my sweet stash and my teddy bear, so I wouldn't advise it.**

Author's Notes: Yes! It's here! FINALLY!!! I took a long time again though... slaps self oh well, I did it. Thankyou so so so much, I cannot say enough thankyous to all the dedicated people who reviewed, it kept me feeling guilty about this until I simply couldn't help but write this for you. Also, I apologise for the shortness, but it seemed to have reached its natural end so I thought I'd better stop poking it anymore.

Warning - MORE SMUT! Yes, thats lemony goodness, so all ye fair or faint of heart, go away or deal with it.

"_Hart_?"

There was silence for a few seconds in the circle of Death Eaters. Most eyes were fixed upon the shape of the Dark Lord, some flicking between the boy-who-lived...or was it? On the ground. The boy and the Dark Lord himself were locked eye-to-eye, and there was a sense on uncomfortable shuffling as the Death Eaters felt the aura between them, felt the sense of intrusion, like they were seeing something which should have been kept strictly private.

"My...my Lord...?" Wormtail said, hesitantly, biting his lip.

"_Silence_!" The word was hissed, not in parseltongue but in a low, dangerous tone. And the most frightening thing for the Death Eaters was that it had not come from the tall, black robed figure with his wand still out in front of him. It had instead been issued from the mouth of the sprawled, naked boy on the ground, but with all the power and authority of the Dark Lord himself.

"How...how is this possible?" The Dark Lord said, in a voice so low it was almost a whisper. The few Death Eaters who weren't fixated on the two figures faces were shocked to see that the hand protruding from the robe was _shaking_. Actually shaking, as if their Lord was scared or filled with emotion. Two things that _never_ happened to the Dark Lord.

"You can't kill your own Horcrux. You should know that, Tom." The boy's voice was harsh, cracked like a mirror, and hoarse as if he had been screaming or yelling. A small, wry smile graced his features and the Dark Lord drew back from the sight.

"No. It's not possible!" He spat at the figure on the ground.

"Deny it all you want. It's true." He sounded not exactly unhappy, but not happy either. More...resigned. The Dark Lord drew himself back, a look of horror mixed with hope on his face and turned away from the crumpled heap.

"Avery, Nott, take this... person to my private quarters immediately. The rest of you... be ready for a meeting in one hour." He looked around, seeing that they were all still standing dumbly. "I believe I issued you with some orders?" His voice was as slippery as ice and twice as cold.

The Death Eaters began apparating, each sounding a crack as they disappeared, until the only ones left were Harry, Voldemort and the dark figures of Avery and Nott. At Voldemort's signal they came forward and lifted Harry up, one on each side of him. He didn't struggle or fight them, just let himself be lifted and never took his gaze from Voldemort's.

There was another loud crack as they apparated and Voldemort was left on his own, staring up at the deserted castle behind them, on a battlefield strewn with bodies of both sides, blood, ashes and weapons. Soon the villagers from Hogsmeade would be here, to salvage what was useable and to collect the dead. Taking one last look at the desecrated place, Voldemort apparated away and the field was left, blackened and cold, strewn with corpses.

---

Harry was very cold. Avery and Nott had apparated him to just outside a pair of huge, black wood doors, assumedly the entrance to Voldemort's quarters. He was still naked and the stone floor underneath his feet was very cold. Nott waved his wand at the doors and as they swung open silently, they both pulled Harry through.

He could feel the tension in their fingers; feel them gingerly pulling him, unsure of how much force to use. They both knew, as all the Death Eaters did, that until a few moments ago he had been Harry Potter, arch nemesis of Voldemort and the biggest threat since Dumbledore died. He could darkly imagine what they must be feeling now. Confusion, most of all, then fear and panic. He was an unknown, evidently _something_ had stopped the killing curse from affecting him, and the few who knew about Horcruxes and were intelligent enough to decipher their cryptic banter were probably speculating fearfully on what he had that made him good enough to be the Dark Lord's Horcrux.

Shaking his head, he banished his thoughts and looked around him. The rooms he was being half-escorted, half-dragged through were decorated in typical slytherin colours, a lot of green, silver and black. The spaces were meticulously tidy, and Harry grinned wryly to himself at the thought that Tom hadn't changed in fifty years.

He was pushed through one final set of doors and they slammed behind him, he was left standing in pitch blackness. With no wand, he had no way of illuminating his surroundings so he carefully stepped forward, feeling ahead for something to re-orientate himself with. His knees hit something soft and he fell forwards, landing on cold material and feeling it support his weight. Kneeling, he brushed his hand along the surface of the material, until he hit a wall. He gathered it was some sort of bed, and without too much effort he decided that it hadn't been slept in for some time.

The door swished open behind him and light again filled the room, making him squint round into the silhouette of the figure at the door, shivering as the breeze caused played across his bare skin, raising goose bumps. Voldemort stood there in all his menacing glory, red eyes swirling. He approached the bed and pulled Harry off of it, taking him into the room beyond and standing him in the centre of the room.

Harry unconsciously put his hands down to cover his nakedness, this figure before him was so very different from the Tom he had left by the lake an hour ago. Something in Voldemort's serpentine features hardened at the action, and when he spoke it was a voice that sounded forced, as if he was having to make himself say the words.

"It's been a very long time, Har... Harry." Harry looked into red eyes and shook his head.

"Not for me."

The light in Voldemort's eyes went far away, and Harry could tell he was remembering that day, every detail of the way he had vanished so unexpectedly. "I was angry. Angry you had left me. Angry you had been taken away from me. Furious. I vowed revenge." Harry stayed silent, gazing at the man who, once upon a time, he had loved with all his heart. "You went back in time to kill me, didn't you." It was a statement, not a question, and Harry nodded slowly. Voldemort was no longer looking at him, staring instead behind him, away into the distance.

Inside Harry there were two different people battling it out, the part which had never truly left this time, that had kept reminding him while he had been in the past that it was just that, the past, was marvelling that the vicious, cruel thing they knew as Voldemort was so evidently affected by emotion. Then the other part, the one that had fallen in love with Tom Riddle a long, long time ago was crying out to the other man's soul, trying to find in the creature before them what had made them fall in love so long ago.

"You know... everything I ever did was for you. I was so intent on getting revenge for you, I turned into the very thing I swore to destroy." Red eyes moved to meet green. "I never stopped loving you."

Suddenly Voldemort was embracing him and Harry felt his body flinch back, part of him frantically trying to extricate himself from the Dark Lord's grasp and the other half pushing desperately for him to hug back, to show he wasn't rejecting the embrace.

"Tom..." He used the word hesitantly, it felt almost wrong to use it of the creature before him, but there was that voice crying in the back of his mind that somewhere inside the man in front of him was the boy he had fallen in love with, buried under years of isolation, pain and thirst for revenge. Revenge for _him_. "Your skin is cold." He said, and felt the man stiffen, pulling away.

Sorrow looked out of red eyes at him. "What do we do, Hart? I cannot accept you as Harry and you cannot accept me as Voldemort, yet that is who we are. I cannot kill you as Harry because I know you were once my Hart and you cannot kill me as Voldemort because I was once your Tom."

Harry looked at the floor. "I feel... I feel like there are two people inside of me, Tom. Hart and Harry. Harry is telling me that I must kill you, that you are evil, that you killed Ron and Hermione and everyone I ever knew and loved. That you are a monster and I am a monster for loving you. But Hart is crying out for me to give you a chance, to let you show the person that Hart fell in love with fifty years ago. That you did all those things for _me_, even if you didn't know it, and that you are still the one I should be in love with. The one I _am_ in love with."

Voldemort sighed and turned, walking away, beckoning for Harry to follow. They entered a room which had a low ceiling but was covered wall to wall in drapes, mostly green. There was a bed there, large and covered in warm blankets, but it was so pristinely made that Harry doubted Voldemort had slept in it in a very long while. "You don't sleep?" He commented.

Voldemort shook his head. "No. I meditate to regain energy, I have done ever since I went through the rebirth process. This body doesn't need sleep. It can be persuaded to, but the dreams it produces are enough to prevent me trying it more than once."

"So... you haven't slept in three years?" Harry's mind was spinning at the thought.

"Not three. Nearly seventeen. I haven't properly slept since the night my spell failed to kill you the first time. Spirits don't sleep and after I regained form, I didn't need to." There was a slight shaking in Voldemort's shoulders that both amazed and unnerved Harry. "It's been such a _long _time. And it's all... it's all my fault!" The last bit came out in a rush and Voldemort turned back to Harry, their eyes meeting again. It seemed so wrong, so unreal to see pain in those eyes, that Harry had known to be filled with anger and cruelty in every previous memory.

Harry suddenly realised, with a shock like a wave of cold water, exactly what Tom had been through. The pain, the loss, the absolute horror that came with knowing that _you _were the one to cause untold pain to yourself, over a span of fifty years. That _you_ were the one to put your only love into such a state that caused nightmares and agony of the mind and body.

That _you_ had very nearly destroyed the only thing you ever cared about.

Sinking to the floor, Harry put his head in his hands. "I...I hated you so much, Tom. I hated you with my whole being, and then I went back in time to kill you in order to save everyone I'd ever loved and you were there. So different, so beautiful, so _wonderful_ that I forgot what it had been like in my own time. I forgot my friends, I forgot my teachers, I forgot my family. I fell in love with you and denied to myself that it could ever end. I tried not to think about it, because there was no way to tell you that you would have understood."

He could feel Voldemort over him, fingers nearly, nearly touching him but keeping back, keeping away from what he knew they wanted so badly.

Opening his eyes, he looked upwards and stood up, pressing his mouth to the cold lips of the man above him, pushing away all his doubts in one spontaneous and desperate movement.

For a few seconds, they hung there, staring into each others eyes, closer than a breath, and something _clicked_ inside them.

Voldemort threw his arms around the smaller form, pulling him tight so they were touching the whole way down. One arm secured itself around Harry's lower back, the older trailed lower, to the base of Harry's spine. He gripped the boy tightly and was rewarded with a gasp, which let him slip his tongue into Harry's willing mouth.

For Voldemort, it was like finding himself again, after fifty years of staggering around half blind he could finally, perfectly see. The weight of the boy in his arms was all that mattered and suddenly it didn't matter that this was Harry Potter, all he needed to know right now was that he had everything he had been fighting for right here in his arms.

For Harry, it was what he had needed. It was the final, perfect proof that the man in front of him, holding him, was the man he had indeed fallen in love with. It didn't matter that he was technically Voldemort, he recognised the sensations shooting through him and he clung tighter in silent thanks for the feelings that for a short time he had been afraid he had lost.

Wordlessly, Voldemort laid Harry out on the bed, extricating clutching fingers from the hem of his robe as he pulled away, only to return a moment later, devoid of the obstructing material. Harry had his eyes closed, but Voldemort brushed the side of his face lightly, before speaking in a low voice. "Harry, open your eyes. If you really want to do this, I have to know you are okay with me being this way. In this body." He stared down as Harry slowly opened his eyes, an expression of apprehension on his face.

Harry gazed down at the form that hovered over him. The skin was deathly white, like a corpse, the eyes were red like blood and the face was flat and snakelike. Everything as he remembered. However, now that he really looked closely, he could compare it to something else he had seen not too long ago, a couple of days at the most. The white skin was a similar colour to the way it had been on the night of the Winter Dance and now that Harry thought about it he found it looked just as smooth and beautiful as it had before. The eyes which were indeed the colour of fresh blood held emotion, sadness and loneliness and the faint light of hope. The face which reminded him so much of a snake was creased in sorrow, as Harry looked over the body which Voldemort now had to inhabit.

Looking up, he met the blood red eyes and said quietly, reverently and completed truthfully, "Tom...You're beautiful."

The relief and joy that the comment sparked turn the blood into rubies, and Voldemort smiled slightly. "Now then." He said, his voice becoming a low hiss. "Where were we?"

Harry grinned and reached up to pull the man down into a kiss that was long overdue. Having solved the issue with names and bodies, they began to explore each other's forms with their mouths. For Harry it was to sense the changes in his lover's form from what he had been fifty years ago. For Voldemort, it was a reaffirmation of the fact that he had his love back, an indulgence in what he had been denied for so very long.

When they were both panting with desire and sheathed in sweat, Voldemort pulled Harry's legs up, intending to prepare him, but was surprised when Harry pulled away, pushing Voldemort back and straddling him so that their cocks rubbed together, causing them both to moan. Voldemort pushed himself up with his hands but stopped and stared when he saw what Harry was doing.

Harry had raised himself slightly up, one hand on the white chest, so that his cock brushed Voldemort's teasingly. The height gave Voldemort a perfect view of Harry slipping one finger inside himself, slowly and carefully, wincing slightly at the awkward angle and the pain of intrusion. Moving it in and out a couple of times, he then inserted a second finger and began thrusting that in and out too. Harry had his eyes tightly closed, his mouth was open and he was panting, head tipped back exposing a slender neck glistening with perspiration. Unable to take his eyes off of the delicious sight, Voldemort fought to keep control of his body and not jerk himself closer to the enticing teen as his cock longed to.

Harry had now slipped a third finger into that tight heat and by the expression on his face was really feeling the pain now. Voldemort saw the hand flex as the fingers inside curled and recurled. Suddenly, Harry jerked and his arm gave out, landing him on Voldemort's chest and pushing their cocks together roughly. Voldemort moaned again and Harry whined, his eyes going back in his head as the combined pleasure from his cock and his sweet spot washed over him. Curling his fingers again, he gave another jerk and rubbed their two straining cocks across each other, earning another pair of moans.

Striking forward, Voldemort grabbed Harry's arm and pulled, extricating the fingers from the heat and causing Harry to keen with pain and loss. Voldemort made to flip Harry over but once again the teen took control, pushing himself up and guiding the tip of Voldemort's cock to his entrance, sitting down at such an angle that the head pushed hard against his prostate. He moaned and leaned forward, capturing the lips of the stunned Dark Lord.

Voldemort felt the smaller tongue teasing his own, the hot body above him and above all the tight, _hot_, sinfully good pressure around his cock. Allowing Harry to push him backwards, his hands travelled up slim legs, brushing his thumbs over Harry's thighs and earning him a shiver which sent delightful vibrations through his cock. Taking hold of Harry's hips, they worked together to bring him up, completely off Voldemort's cock before encasing it completely again. Harry broke the kiss to cry out, the pain had been more than the pleasure that time, and began working his way up and down as he found the spot which made him see stars again.

One of Voldemort's hands shifted from Harry's hip, leaving finger marks in its wake, to wrap around the teen's weeping cock, working it so Harry lost it in a keen which had him collapsing on Voldemort's chest, exhausted. Voldemort roughly flipped them both over and began pounding into Harry forcefully, coming harder than he had since that night when he had taken Hart under the moon on the night of the Winter Dance. He collapsed too, bringing their come-spattered stomachs together and causing his hot breath to play across Harry's neck, making him shiver.

Pulling out, he lay beside the smaller form of his lover and pulled his body close, burying his face in the boy's long hair. They lay like that for a while, basking in the afterglow, as the heat from their coupling was cooled by the chill night air. Eventually, Harry shifted, turning to face Voldemort with half-lidded eyes and lips red from kissing.

"Don't... don't you have a Death Eater meeting soon?" His voice was low and slightly rough from his yells and Voldemort wanted nothing more than to cancel the meeting completely and just keep this lithe body next to him all night, to sleep and maybe not dream for once.

"Yes. I do..." The question had been a hard jolt back into reality, where there were responsibilities and politics and subordinates to be dealt with. "Harry..."

Harry put a hand to Voldemort's face. "Don't worry. I don't care. I don't care what you do, or what you did, I forgive you for that. I know that everything you ever did, however terrible, was for me. I know that that doesn't excuse it, but what can I do? I love you, and you love me, and everything else must be water under the broken bridge, okay?"

The Dark Lord smiled and kissed Harry, long and slow and sweet, pulling away to see Harry flushed and breathing slightly heavier than usual. He smiled.

"I know." He said, Pulling Harry close to him once more and feeling the teen bury his face in his own pale neck. "I know you have forgiven me, and for that I am glad. There will be questions, and complications, about the past and the future, but they don't matter now."

And there would be questions, and complications, about what had happened and what would happen, but as the two entwined figures shared a last few moments of complete peace, there was the feeling that somehow, it didn't matter.

Nothing mattered but the two of them, and until the outside world came calling, nothing ever would.

Author's Notes: YES! It's doooooonnnee! I can now actually go and click the little thing which turns this story into "complete"! Joy! It may have taken a while but I am extremely sorry and very grateful for all you people who reviewed and kept it on my mind. First Harry and Voldy went off on an angst spiral, then when I finally managed to break them out of it they enter into a fluff fest! I hope the Lemon was worth waiting for though, and that I don't get my account revoked for it... . Now, I know quite are few people are going to be left with questions about various things, such as whatever happened to Vlad. Do not worry! I didn't forget about him, in fact he plays a rather major part in the sequel to this story which is as yet unwritten, though not unplanned. Look out for "Gift of a Second Life" at a future date!

Thankyou so much again to all the people who have brought me this far, and I would greatly appriciate any last words, even just a couple of lines saying that you liked it. Reviews really are the food Author's eat and the air we breathe. So if you enjoyed it, tell me! Thankyou again, and fare thee all well!


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